LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


Gl  FT    OF 


Cfes 


New  York  State  Education  Department 


OUR  CHILDREN,  OUR  SCHOOLS,  AND  OUR 
INDUSTRIES 


COMMISSIONER'S  SPECIAL  THEME 
ANNUAL  REPORT  1908 


BY 

ANDREW  S.   DRAPER,  LL.B.  LL.D. 

Commissioner  of  Education 


ALBANY,  N.  Y. 


D404I--D  7-3500 


OUR  CHILDREN,  OUR  SCHOOLS,  AND  OUR 
INDUSTRIES 

It  is  putting  it  not  a  whit  too  strongly  to  say  that  it  is  quite 
apparent  to  all  who  think  about  it  that  we  must  have  much  more 
accurate  and  up-to-date  vital  statistics;  that  we  must  have  public 
records  of  what  children  there  are  among  us,  and  their  ages;  that 
all  children  of  school  age  must  be  more  completely  accounted  for 
in  the  schools ;  that  the  compulsory  school  age  must  at  least  be 
extended  to  the  completion  of  the  elementary  schools ;  that  provision 
must  be  made  for  public  vocation  or  trades  schools,  and  also  for 
schools  of  a  general  character  which  meet  the  continuing  needs  of 
young  people  in  the  stores  and  shops  and  factories;  that  these 
schools  for  the  industrial  masses  must  operate  at  times  which  will 
allow  pupils  to  engage  in  regular  employment,  but  employers  must 
plan  for  the  regular  attendance  of  young  employees  upon  the  schools 
at  certain  hours ;  that  the  schools  must  keep  hold  of  all  pupils  until 
they  have  received  a  training  which  will  fit  them  for  some  definite 
employment ;  and  that  the  different  parts  of  a  more  extended  school 
system  must  balance  each  other  more  exactly  and  support  the 
industrial  as  well  as  the  professional  activities  of  the  country. 

The  recognition  of  the  need  of  all  this  grows  out  of  manifest 
moral,  industrial,  and  economic  conditions  that  are  widely  prevalent 
among  us,  and  out  of  a  growing  knowledge  of  what  other  peoples, 
harder  pressed  and  more  painstaking  than  we,  have  done  to  meet 
the  conditions  which  are  now  asserting  themselves  here.  It  grows 
out  of  our  clearing  vision  that  simple  and  balanced  justice,  as  well 
as  the  progress  and  happiness  of  the  people,  and  the  strength  and 
poise  of  the  nation,  alike  make  it  necessary  to  give  to  the  wage 
earning  masses,  and  to  the  common  industries,  such  equivalent  as 
we  can  for  what  the  present  schools  are  doing  for  the  wealthier 
classes  and  for  the  professional  ajid  managing  vocations. 

The  recognition  of  the  need  is  opening  the  door  to  a  decisive 
educational  advance  in  Amenca;  and  the  time  seems  ripe  for  a 
review  of  the  reasons  for  it  a'nd  for  a  serious  discussion  of  the 
plans  and  arrangements  for  it. 

Looking  backward 

n  the  beginning  there  was  no  thought  that  the  common  schools 
should  do  more  than  teach  the  "  three  R's,"  the  mere  elements, 
which  would  enable  one  to  gain  the  knowledge  vital  to  citizenship. 
Farming  was  the  very  general  employment.  Many  of  the  trades 


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were  followed  on  the  farm.  There  was  no  thought  of  leaving  the 
farm.  Boys  were  happy  in  the  thought  of  having  a  farm  and  fol- 
lowing their  fathers  from  whom  they  learned  the  business  of  farm- 
ing. In  the  towns  there  was  a  system  of  apprenticeship  by  which 
boys  were  bound  out  to  tradesmen  and  artisans  for  a  term  of  years 
to  give  service  in  return  for  instruction  in  a  trade.  There  was  no 
employment,  and  little  schooling,  for  girls  outside  of  the  home.  The 
girls  in  every  home  were  made  expert  in  the  household  arts  by  their 
mothers  and  by  the  ordinary  needs  of  the  home,  and  they  were  not 
unhappy  about  it.  Few  boys  and  no  girls  went  to  college.  The 
college  was  the  instrument  of  the  relatively  rich,  and  provided 
rather  exclusive  instruction  in  the  higher  classical  and  culturing 
studies.  It  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  prepared  for  the  professions 
and  certainly  it  did  not  train  in  professional  knowledge  and  skill. 
There  was  no  connecting  link  between  the  college  and  the  common 
school,  which  stood  for  the  masses.  The  early  English  system  per- 
sisted as  it  persists  in  England  still.  They  are  having  a  row  about 
it  over  there  now,  and  seem  likely  to  have  a  yet  larger  one.  A 
system  of  academies  which  was  really  a  system  of  fitting  schools 
for  the  colleges,  developed  in  the  better  towns.  Even  the  academies 
connected  but  very  little  with  the  elementary  schools.  They  were 
half  elementary  schools  themselves ;  the  other  half  managed  to  con- 
nect with  colleges  and  had  to  condescend  to  them.  They  lived  on 
tuition  fees  and  were  patronized  by  the  well-to-do  who  could  afford 
it  and  were  ambitious  to  have  their  children  go  beyond  the  ele- 
mentary branches.  They  participated  in  the  exclusiveness  of  the 
colleges,  but  the  stern  need  of  support  obliged  them  to  adjust  their 
work  to  the  needs  of  all  who  would  send  pupils  to  them.  This  is 
not  saying  that  they  lacked  in  excellence.  They  did  not.  But  they 
were  essentially  private  institutions  and  they  had  an  individuality 
of  their  own.  They  were  not  only  wholly  apart  from  the  common 
schools ;  there  was  much  aloofness.  It  was  an  exceptional  and  a 
most  progressive  community  that  associated  an  academy  with  the 
common  or  elementary  schools.  Accordingly  there  was  no  educa- 
tional outlet  for  the  children  who  completed  the  elementary  schools. 
If  a  son  of  the  poor  got  into  an  academy  there  was  some  shock  about 
it;  and  if  he  broke  into  a  profession  it  was  because  the  fence  was 
low  and  he  had  some  unusual  qualities  in  his  outfit. 

This  could  not  long  be,  and  the  public  high  school  system  came. 
It  came  very  near  supplanting  the  academies  in  the  older  states; 
and  it  kept  them  from  ever  being  in  the  newer  states.  It  took  their 
place  as  college  feeders ;  the  colleges  came  to  be  glad  to  condescend 


to  the  high  schools  also;  indeed,  their  work  of  itself  developed 
many  colleges.  With  it  all,  the  colleges  have  multiplied  and  the 
best  of  them  have  become  great  universities.  The  public  high 
school  system  became  the  strong  connecting  link  between  the  ele- 
mentary schools  and  the  colleges.  Every  effort  was  made  to  have 
the  connections  close  and  smooth.  The  road  from  "  the  kindergar- 
ten to  the  university  "  was  made  continuous  and  easy.  The  colleges 
and  universities  were  broadened  in  their  work  and  liberalized  and 
popularized  in  their  character.  The  scientific  interests  made  a  great 
fight  against  classical  exclusiveness,  and  slowly  got  the  better  of  the 
old  Romanlike  resistance.  At  all  events,  science  broke  in.  Pro- 
fessional expertness  came  to  have  a  scientific  basis  and  came  to 
require  a  higher  scientific  training.  The  universities  came  to  have 
professional  schools,  and  got  the  laws  changed  so  that  students 
headed  for  the  professions  found  it  to  their  advantage,  or  were 
absolutely  required,  to  go  to  them.  Mechanical  and  agricultural 
schools  and  colleges  grew  up,  and  often  in  association  with  the  older 
literary  colleges  and  universities.  The  ideal  of  a  university  came 
to  be  one  that  could  supply  the  best  instruction  in  any  study.  There 
was  economy  in  producing  stronger  all-around  scholars,  and  in 
training  for  the  professions,  for  managerial  capacity  in  business, 
and  for  leadership  in  public  life,  through  grouping  all  manner  of 
schools  about  the  same  campus.  The  aggregations  developed  mar- 
velous spirit  and  attractiveness.  Then  came  the  days  of  competi- 
tion and  imitation;  of  fraternities,  and  debates;  of  athletics,  of 
gymnasiums,  and  tracks,  and  games,  and  intercollegiate  contests ; 
of  ribbons,  and  songs,  and  bands,  and  mascots,  and  awful  yelling. 
It  pretty  nearly  set  states  aflame.  It  would  be  unfair  to  imply  that 
the  rivalry  and  the  noise  were  all  that  attracted  youth  to  high  school 
and  college.  Far  from  it.  They  not  only  taught  more  things,  and 
more  things  in  which  there  was  human  interest,  but  they  taught 
them  in  infinitely  better  ways.  Moreover,  they  taught  them  to 
both  sexes.  All  in  all,  the  multiplicity  of  actual  work,  and  the  glow 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  environment,  certainly  attracted  the  ambi- 
tious youth.  There  are  very  considerable  areas  in  the  country  now, 
where  every  boy  and  every  girl  in  the  elementary  schools  thinks 
of  the  high  school,  and  every  one  in  the  high  school  debates  the 
matter  of  going  to  college.  The  stronger  of  both  sexes  feel  injured 
if  denied  the  advanced  learning. 

That  is  not  all.  The  influence  of  the  teachers  of  all  grades  is 
exerted  to  send  all  of  the  children  to  the  grade  above,  along  the 
road  that  leads  to  the  university.  They  are  told  of  the  equal  rights 


6 

of  every  one  and  of  the  increased  resourcefulness  and  efficiency, 
and  therefore  of  the  better  chance,  which  is  provided  by  the  higher 
training.  Acting  upon  the  American  spirit  and  temperament,  the 
result  is  quick  and  strong.  On  the  whole  it  is  well  Sometimes  it  is 
pathetic,  for  it  often  leads  parents  to  sacrifice  more  than  they  ought, 
and  sometimes  it  directs  youth  into  places  already  well  occupied 
and  for  which  they  have  no  special  adaptation.  It  is  saying  noth- 
ing against  the  students  most  concerned,  and  nothing  against  the 
claims  of  the  universities,  to  say  that  there  can  be  no  doubt  about 
the  faqt  that  many  get  into  them  who  would  be  better  off  in  the 
end  if  they  would  put  the  qualities  they  have  into  other  work,  when 
they  are  without  the  factors  which  are  requisite  to  success  in  un- 
dertakings which  practically  exact  university  training.  There  is 
serious  question  about  many  going  to  college  who  do  go. 

It  ought  to  be  seen  that,  in  view  of  the  spirit,  the  democracy, 
the  political  philosophy,  and  the  temperament  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  this  is  much  more  likely  to  be  so  here  than  in  coun- 
tries where  there  is  distinct  cleavage  between  industrial  and  social 
classes,  where  families  live  in  the  same  way  for  generations,  and 
where  all  of  the  political  philosophy, and  all  of  the  government  plans 
and  policies  are  set  against  one's  getting  above  the  class  and  the 
kind  of  work  in  which  he  was  born.  It  is  saying  nothing  against 
our  temperament,  and  spirit,  and  political  philosophy,  to  say  that 
it  leads  a  great  many  youth  into  places  or  kinds  of  work  for  which 
they  are  not  best  adapted.  In  American  schools,  particularly  the 
secondary  schools  and  above,  every  one  is  told  that  he  is  lacking  in 
every  desirable  quality  if  he  is  not  hitching  his  wagon  to  a  star. 
That  is  all  right  enough  if  there  could  be  some  discrimination  about 
the  kind  of  star  that  it  would  be  well  for  the  particular  individual 
to  try  to  harness  up  with.  The  true  standards  of  value  concerning 
positions  and  fitness  for  positions  are  often  but  poorly  understood. 
There  are  many  failures  through  misfits.  In  the  indiscriminate 
scramble  for  places  which  will  enable  one  to  wear  fine  clothes  and 
live  in  a  great  house  or  at  the  clubs,  some  get  into  places  they  can 
not  fill,  many  who  manage  to  make  a  living  in  such  places  would 
be  far  happier  and  make  a  better  living  in  other  places,  and  many 
more  lose  their  best  chances  in  life  by  a  mistaken  race  after  a  fleet- 
ing vision  when  substantial  opportunities  are  actually  and  easily 
within  their  reach. 

There  would  be  quite  as  much  of  this  as  we  can  well  afford  if 
the  educational  system  did  not  lead  so  exclusively  to  professional 
employments  and  to  the  quasi  professional  positions  and  the  man- 


aging  positions  in  the  business  and  industrial  vocations.     As  it  is, 
there  is  so  much  of  it  that  it  is  actually  making  us  poor. 

Nothing  leads  to  craftsmanship 

But  that  is  not  all.  Any  hand  work  that  is  found  in  the  ele- 
mentary school  —  and  on  the  whole  it  is  very  little  —  is  sustained 
on  the  theory  that  it  is  a  desirable  accomplishment,  an  intellectual 
quickener,  rather  than  that  all  the  world  must  work,  and  that  work 
with  the  hands  must  be  much  more  common  and  quite  as  reputable 
as  work  with  the  head.  Instead  of  leading  to  a  trade  it  prepares 
for  the  manual  training  high  school,  if  there  is  one,  and  that  leads 
to  the  technological  college,  if  it  leads  anywhere,  and  that  to  one 
of  the  engineering  professions.  Nothing  in  the  common  schools 
leads  to  a  trade. 

The  manual  training  high  schools  are  too  elaborate,  too  expen- 
sive, in  a  way  too  dilettante,  to  lead  to  anything  other  than  one 
of  the  industrial  professions;  often  they  do  not  even  prepare  for 
training  in  one  of  these.  They  are  much  more  like  schools  than 
shops,  whereas  they  should  be  more  like  shops  than  schools.  In 
buildings  that  have  nothing  of  the  appearance  of  a  shop,  they  have 
machinery,  tools,  equipment,  atmosphere,  theory,  and  practice, 
which  differentiate  them  widely  from  the  shop.  They  are  managed 
by  men  who  are  more  teachers  than  workmen,  when  they  should 
be  managed  by  men  who  are  at  least  quite  as  much  workmen  as 
teachers.  Often  the  machinery  and  tools  make  an  interesting  show 
without  being  needed  or  effectually  used,  because  there  is  not  a 
skilled  workman  to  use  them.  Many  a  time  a  principal  or  teacher 
pleads  for  an  appropriation  with  which  to  buy  machinery,  tools, 
and  other  equipment,  without  any  definite  theory,  or  plan,  or  end, 
in  view.  If  refused,  he  would  feel  outraged  and  become  a  martyr. 
If  given,  he  studies  the  catalogues  and  sees  the  agents  for  the  pur- 
pose of  spending  the  money  in  ways  that  will  look  well  and  make 
an  impression  upon  the  people,  who  always  love  an  object  lesson 
and  are  often  susceptible  and  superficial  about  industrial  training. 
Real  tradesmen  and  workmen  discriminate;  and  they  are  amused 
by  what  they  see.  There  is  not  enough  substantial  result  to  it.  I 
know  very  well  that  this  is  not  always  true,  but  quite  as  well  that  it 
is  often  true. 

It  is  true  also  that  the  overwhelming  influence  of  American 
technical  schools,  from  lowest  to  highest,  is  quite  as  much  in 
the  direction  of  turning  out  men  for  professional  and  managing 
employments  as  is  the  influence  of  the  purely  literary  and  sci- 


8 

entific  schools.  Of  course  it  is  for  professional  employment  in  one 
of  the  industrial  professions  and  for  managing  positions  in  one 
of  the  leading  manufacturing  industries,  but  it  is  none  the  less 
for  a  professional  and  managing  vocation.  It  does  not  train  work- 
men. It  is  saying  little  against  the  system  to  say  that  it  is  one- 
sided, in  the  effort  to  bring  up  the  other  side  and  develop  a  system 
that  is  better  balanced. 

The  unskilled  labor  in  American  cities  is  trained  but  very  little 
in  the  American  schools.  It  is  now  derived  very  largely  from  the 
less  favored  countries  of  the  old  world.  American  children  are 
taught  that  they  must  hold  themselves  above  unskilled  labor.  It  is, 
however,  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  young  men  and  women  in 
industrial  and  domestic  service  in  this  country,  who  were  better 
trained  in  elementary  knowledge  of  reading,  writing,  and  mathe- 
matics, as  well  as  in  the  simple  arts  which  make  for  ordinary  effi- 
ciency,  before  they  came  to  this  country,  than  the  young  people 
of  similar  age  and  social  plane  are  who  have  always  lived  here. 
They  are  happier  and  of  more  value  to  the  country  for  it.  It  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  elementary  schools  of  the  lands  from  which 
they  came  had  much  less  to  do  than  our  elementary  schools  have, 
and  were  required  to  do  it  more  exactly;  and  to  the  further  fact 
that  those  schools  had  in  mind  the  training  of  youth  for  work, 
rather  than  for  professional  or  managing  employments,  or  for  mere 
accomplishments.  It  is  the  fact  that  our  unskilled  labor  does  not 
come  out  of  our  own  schools,  joined  to  the  fact  that  the  skilled  labor 
that  we  have  is  so  largely  trained  not  in  the  schools  but  in  a  very 
haphazard  way  in  the  shops,  that  is  disturbing  the  equilibrium  of 
our  factories,  impeding  our  industrial  productivity,  and  raising  so 
much  criticism  upon  the  unbalanced  curriculum  of  the  schools. 

The  lines  in  all  the  schools  above  the  elementary  schools,  are  set 
hard  and  fast  for  professional  employments  and  for  managing  posi- 
tions in  industrial  employments,  not  only  through  the  continual 
stirring  of  the  ambitions  which  are  buoyant  in  American  youth,  but 
also  through  the  large  provision  for  the  literary  and  scientific  train- 
ing which  is  naturally  incident  thereto,  or  is  actually  required  by 
such  employments.  In  the  high  schools,  the  colleges,  the  profes- 
sional schools  that  are  independent  as  well  as  those  related  to  the 
universities,  in  the  business  and  commercial  schools  or  independent 
schools  of  every  kind,  in  the  universities,  and  even  in  the  technical 
schools  of  every  grade,  the  whole  scheme  is  set  to  turn  out  profes- 
sional men,  and  managers,  and  captains  of  something  or  other, 
rather  than  skilled  workmen.  It  is  so,  too,  in  the  elementary  schools 


where  the  lines  are  set  at  all.  From  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  the 
school  system  the  eye  is  on  the  school  above,  and  the  school  above 
leads  to  a  professional  or  a  managing  employment  rather  than  to 
a  trade  vocation. 

If  the  manual  training  in  the  high  schools  or  the  separate  manual 
training  schools  of  secondary  grade,  or  the  little  industrial  drawing 
or  other  simple  industrial  work  in  the  elementary  schools,  be  ad- 
vanced in  refutation  of  this  statement,  it  is  insisted  that  they  do  not 
refute  it.  The  little  industrial  work  in  the  elementary  schools  has 
been  looked  upon  as  a  diversion,  or  as  a  preparation  for  the  man- 
ual training  in  the  high  schools,  and  the  enthusiastic  advocates  of 
manual  training  in  the  high  schools  have  been  content  to  rest  their 
interest  in  it  upon  its  all-around  culturing  and  educational  value, 
meaning  thereby  its  value  to  intellectual  virility  and  energy,  rather 
than  upon  the  fact  that  it  would  make  a  more  skilled  craftsman  and 
therefore  an  individual  of  more  character  and  a  citizen  of  more 
strength  in  the  case  of  the  man  who  works  by  himself  alone  and 
not  as  one  of  art  organized  force,  and  with  his  hands  alone  and 
not  through  the  use  of  a  complicated  machine.  The  technical 
schools  are  of  course  to  be  encouraged,  but  the  very  interests  of 
capital  will  encourage  them,  and,  at  the  most,  when  we  think  of 
their  bearing  upon  men  and  women,  they  tend  to  make  the  human 
a  part  of  the  machine,  or  they  lead  to  one  of  the  engineering  pro- 
fessions or  to  the  captaining  of  workmen.  From  first  to  last,  there 
has  been  little  about  the  American  educational  system,  and  there  is 
now  little  about  the  American  industrial  system  to  dignify  and  uplift 
craftsmanship,  or  to  multiply  and  train  the  physical  qualities  of  the 
individual  man. 

Wholly  apart  from  the  one-sided  tendencies  of  our  educational 
system,  the  fact  is  that  if  any  mechanical  tendencies  which  a  child 
may  have  are  neglected  until  he  gets  into  the  high  school,  they  are 
never  likely  to  come  to  much  anyway.  And  the  further  fact  is  that 
so  long  as  manual  training  has  to  be  dominated  by  the  method  and 
atmosphere  of  the  school  rather  than  of  the  shop,  and  managed  by 
one  whom  the  capable  workman  regards  as  a  sort  of  dilettante 
theorist  rather  than  by  one  who  likes  to  wear  a  blouse  and  overalls  and 
actually  does  fine  work  with  his  hands,  it  is  not  likely  to  stimulate 
the  best  character  in  workmanship  nor  to  turn  out  any  considerable 
number  of  justly  self-satisfied  and  abundantly  desirable  workmen. 
It  may  in  part  fit  men  for  the  work  of  the  engineering  colleges, 
which  may  make  engineers  of  some  of  them.  And  in  some  of  the 
engineers  there  will  develop  the  qualities  which  will  make  for  leader- 


IO 

ship  in  great  constructive  enterprises.  But  it  all  leads  away  from 
independent  craftsmanship.  In  a  general  way  the  same  thing  is 
true — perhaps  more  is  true — of  the  commercial  courses  and  the  com- 
mercial schools.  Doubtless  they  inspire  some  and  aid  a  few  to  enlarge 
their  efficiency,  but  it  is  surely  within  the  fact  to  say  that  the  ratio 
of  captains,  or  even  of  finished  business  men,  they  produce  is,  from 
an  educational  standpoint,  discouragingly  small. 

In  saying  this  it  is  not  intended  to  urge  that  the  literary,  and 
professional,  and  commercial,  and  technical  schools  of  all  grades  are 
worthless  or  not  worth  all  they  have  cost.  On  the  contrary,  they 
each  minister  to  a  class  and  are,  generally  speaking,  invaluable.  It 
is  only  intended  to  urge  that  they  are  one-sided,  that  they  meet 
the  needs  of  the  situation  only  partially,  and  that  their  theories  and 
plans  and  methods  are  such  that  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  meet 
it  completely.  They  are  so  ample  in  numbers  and  good  in  character 
that  they  are  turning  out  quite  all  of  the  professionals  and  captains 
that  the  country  requires,  and  are  beginning  to  do  it  quite  as  thor- 
oughly as  is  being  done  anywhere  in  the  world.  Not  much  beyond 
the  natural  growth  of  these  institutions  seems  now  to  be  necessary 
to  the  professional  life  of  the  country.  This  can  not  be  said  as  to  the 
factors  which  contribute  to  the  industrial  life  of  the  nation. 

Nor  is  it  intended  to  imply  that  the  public  schools  are  not  doing 
the  work  they  are  arranged  to  do,  in  an  efficient  manner.  On  the 
contrary,  again,  the  buildings  average  far  better,  the  equipment  is 
many  times  better,  the  courses  are  more  complete  and  more  logically 
related,  and  the  teachers  much  better  prepared  and  certainly  no  less 
conscientious,  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  country.  It  is 
only  suggesting  that,  in  the  interest  of  the  common  people  and  of 
the  country,  the  kinds  of  schools  must  be  multiplied,  that  the  educa- 
tional scheme  must  be  broadened,  that  attendance  upon  schools 
must  be  longer  and  more  universal,  and  that  the  work  of  the  lower 
schools  must  have  much  more  bearing  upon  the  labor  of  the  masses. 

Reflections  upon  this  subject  have  led  me  to  seek  exact  informa- 
tion, and  I  confess,  with  some  humiliation,  that  it  surprises  me.  The 
situation  is  even  worse  than  I  supposed.  I  have  assumed  that 
practically  all  of  the  children  who  do  not  go  to  the  high  schools  do 
finish  the  elementary  schools.  That  is  not  the  fact.  It  is  clear  that 
the  larger  number  do  not  finish  the  elementary  schools  by  the  time 
they  are  fourteen,  the  age  at  which  the  law  says  they  may  leave 
school  to  go  to  work,  and  that  this  provision  of  the  law  very  com- 
monly leads  parents  to  think  that  the  time  has  come  for  them  to  go 
to  work,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  they  have  not  finished  the 


II 


lower  schools,  and  notwithstanding  the  other  fact  that  there  is  little 
remunerative  work  which  they  can  do.  There  is  often  more  of  a 
break  in  attendance  between  the  fifth  and  sixth  grades  of  the 
elementary  schools  than  there  is  between  the  elementary  schools  and 
the  secondary  schools. 

The  following  table  will  show  the  attendance  in  the  elementary 
schools,  by  grades,  in  the  cities  named,  commencing  in  1899  w^n 
the  class  that  finished  the  course  in  1907.  The  cities  are  not  se- 
lected. The  list  includes  all  cities  of  the  State  from  which  the  data 
could  be  obtained  without  labor  which  was  not  insisted  upon.  There 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  omitted  cities  would  materially 
change  the  deductions. 


12 


ON  M  oo  to  o*  to  N  N  t^  >ooo  ONOO  o  t  to  to      t^oo  ON  n  i>  M 

ONONPOP<NNOMOOOOONC'»MPItNNMPOlOMOO 

00    t^  ON  N    W  O  00    PO  M    PO  M    to  t  PO  O  00    N    <M    M  00  O    ONOO    t  l~» 
PO  M 

W   MOOO   O   tOO   ON  t  PI   N   POPOM  t^.  ON  ON  O  OO   O  tooo  O   ON 

M  O  O    to  tOO    t  M    d    t^  IO  t         t  tOOO    M    O*  tOO   tOOO   t^  tO 

.OO   M   PO  PO  O  ON  1^-00  00   M   O  to  too   M   N  r-  tOOO   O   PO  PO  t*  PO 
to  to  t"-  POO    t  to  to  tO    t^OO  O    t  to  tO    to  PO  tOO    t  t  t  t 

oo  MOOOOO  MOO  OMotMO  t^oo  o  M  t-  i-  wo  oo  M  M  t  o> 

t  H 

«O  O   PO  M   N   N  00   tOO  OOOOMMttoOM   ONO   N   t  t^  «   ON 

M  IO  M 

M         NO  « 

*•«  v>  t*  tO  W  PO  ON  t  M  O  ON  ONOO  N  too  M  wjoo  O  M  tO  ON 
O  00  ONOO  OO  t^  ON  to  t>-  ON  I-  t^OO  O  00  1^00  t^OO  ON  »*  r-  too  to 

PO  N  w  M  ONOO  tO  ONOO  POO  t^  ON  O  OO  ON  too  M  M  t^  O  P*  w 
00   t  ONO   MOONOvO\ONMMPO«OOMOOOOioO\toOO 

MO  N 

M          VO  « 

§000000000000000000000000 
oooooooooooooooooooooooo 

M       \O  f5 

i;:::::  :j  :  :  :  :  j  jjg  :|  :j  :  :  jj 

^1  o  ^JJ  ^§11^101   ill  jl 


&s 


13 

The  totals  and  percentages  are  as  follows : 

GRADE  NUMBER  OF  PUPILS  PER  CENT 

First 21  410 loo 

Second 17  524 82 

Third 17  028 79 

Fourth 15  918 74 

Fifth H  395 67 

Sixth 12  464 58 

Seventh 10  152 ,  47 

Eighth 8  517 40 

The  attendance  by  years  in  New  York  State  high  schools  has  some 
bearing  upon  our  discussion.    In  the  present  year  it  is  as  follows : 

PER  CENT  OF  ALL 

First  year  pupils 39  122 45 

Second  year  pupils 25  145 29 

Third  year  pupils 14  474 16 

Fourth  year  pupils 8  560 10 

Unclassified  pupils   I  769 


Total  ..................  89  070 

Boys,  37,429;  girls,  51,641;  graduates  in  1907,  boys  2424,  girls 


It  is  interesting  to  know  what  the  corresponding  figures  are  for 
the  United  States.  For  the  year  1904-5,  the  last  at  hand,  the  total 
attendance  upon  high  schools  in  the  United  States  was  876,050.  The 
percentage  by  years  was,  first  year  43$  ;  second  year  26$  ;  third  year 
1  8$;  and  fourth  year  13$. 

I  confess  that  it  startles  me  to  find  that  certainly  not  more  than 
two  fifths  and  undoubtedly  not  more  than  one  third  of  the  children 
who  enter  our  elementary  schools  ever  finish  them,  and  that  not 
one  half  of  them  go  beyond  the  fifth  or  sixth  grade. 

It  is  hardly  less  surprising  to  find  that  only  about  one  third  of 
the  pupils  who  go  to  the  high  schools  remain  beyond  the  second 
year,  and  that  only  about  one  sixth  of  those  who  enter  remain  to 
graduate. 

It  all  indicates  that  the  lives  of  children  are  being  wasted,  that 
there  is  a  sad  lack  of  definite  aim  and  purpose  about  it  all,  and  that 
our  educational  plans  do  not  rationally  meet  our  conditions. 


14 

Neither  schools  nor  work  for  children 

As  the  schools  have  developed  on  the  literary,  scientific,  and  pro- 
fessional sides,  the  indenturing  system  has  practically  disappeared. 
Few  boys  are  now  apprenticed  to  a  trade.  Indeed,  many  of  the 
trades  have  either  disappeared,  or  so  changed  as  to  render  the  ap- 
prenticeship system  impracticable.  The  increase  of  machinery, 
which  does  the  work  of  many  men,  has  led  the  older  workmen  who 
work  with  their  hands  to  resist  the  training  of  boys  for  their  work 
in  order  to  avoid  more  competition  in  their  work  than  is  imperative. 
It  is  even  true  that  there  are  many  less  apprentices  in  the  trades  than 
the  rules  of  the  labor  organizations  approve.  This  leads  to  a  short- 
age of  skilled  workmen,  and  to  the  complaint  by  manufacturers  that 
they  can  not  get  competent  workmen.  People  also  complain  that 
the  schools  do  not  fit  children  for  any  ordinary  duties  in  the  stores 
and  offices  and  factories.  It  also  keeps  children  from  getting  work 
of  any  kind  when  they  leave  the  elementary  schools.  If  they  get 
work  it  amounts  to  little,  and  too  often  leads  to  nothing.  All  of  the 
conditions  taken  together  almost  force  children  to  keep  on  in  the 
school  system  and  go  on  toward  the  professional  and  managing  vo- 
cations which  are  more  than  full,  and  for  which  they  lack  adapta- 
tion; or  else  be  out  of  any  kind  of  work  for  several  years.  As  a 
fact,  masses  of  them  are  out  of  school  and  also  out  of  work  for  a 
long  time,  if  not  for  all  time. 

I  shall  not  leave  the  entire  responsibility  for  this  either  upon  the 
parents  or  the  children.  Some  of  it  must  fall  upon  the  provisions  of 
the  law ;  some  of  it  is  chargeable  to  the  inefficiency  with  which  school 
attendance  and  child  labor  laws  are  enforced;  and  some  of  it  must 
be  attributed  to  the  overloading  and  the  slowness  of  the  schools,  and 
in  some  measure  to  the  want  of  alertness  and  energy  in  school  ad- 
ministration. Parents  face  hard  problems  concerning  the  family 
support,  and  are  much  influenced  by  the  fancies  of  the  children. 
The  children  can  not  know  what  leaving  school  means  to  them. 
Neither  the  control  of  the  home  nor  that  of  the  school  over  chil- 
dren is  what  it  once  was.  Both  homes  and  schools  are  awfully 
profligate  of  boys  and  girls.  The  break  comes  at  a  critical  time  in 
the  physical  life  of  the  child;  the  time 'when  he  most  needs  con- 
trol, restraint,  guidance,  and  cheer;  the  time  when  he  most  needs 
to  be  occupied,  to  be  shown  the  need  and  the  method  of  applica- 
tion to  serious  work,  and  to  be  directed  into  some  work,  never  mind 
what  it  is,  which  he  can  do  completely  and  be  happy  in  the  doing  of 
it.  Instead  of  that  he  is  often  running  wild  at  this  time ;  frequently 


15 

impolite,  mannerless,  and  sometimes  impertinent;  forgetting  the 
things  of  value  he  has  learned,  learning  what  he  ought  not  to  know 
until  he  is  older,  if  at  all,  and  developing  uncontrollable,  unambi- 
tious, and  inefficient,  if  not  vicious,  qualities,  which  are  more  than 
likely  to  preclude  him  from  ever  becoming  very  much  of  a  man. 

Does  some  one  say  that  this  is  too  highly  colored,  that  it  is  not 
true  of  many,  and  that  it  is  pessimistic?  Rational  optimism  never 
shuts  its  eyes  to  the  truth.  What  I  have  just  said  is  literally  and 
completely  true  of  more  than  half  the  children  of  our  people.  And 
if  true  of  only  a  much  smaller  number,  it  would  be  well  worth 
my  attention  and  my  protest. 

There  is  fault  in  the  law.  It  should  require  that  children  finish 
the  elementary  schools,  or  at  least  remain  in  them  or  in  a  trades 
school  to  the  end  of  their  sixteenth  year,  before  they  go  to  work. 
It  might  well  gather  them  into  the  schools  before  the  eighth  year, 
and  it  might  well  require  us  to  make  attendance  more  regular  and 
more  resultful. 

There  is  fault,  much  fault,  in  the  plan  and  in  the  work  of  the 
schools.  If  they  do  not  have  too  many  studies  —  about  which  I  am 
not  without  skepticism  —  they  certainly  consume  too  much  time  upon 
some  of  the  studies  they  do  have.  There  are  too  many  grades  of 
books  in  the  same  study.  The  thing  is  drawn  out  regardless  of  time 
and,  almost,  of  interest,  and  certainly  of  educational  efficiency.  The 
day  of  reckoning  is  hardly  anticipated  at  all.  For  example,  there  is 
almost  enough  time  of  the  child  put  upon  such  a  study  as  geography 
to  enable  him  to  learn  a  foreign  language,  when  the  fact  is  he  will 
learn  all  the  geography  it  will  ever  be  necessary  for  him  to  know 
in  a  few  minutes  when  it  is  desirable  for  him  to  know  it. 

But  that  is  not  all,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  the  most.  There  is  alto- 
gether too  much  so  called  "  psychological  science,"  too  much  fanci- 
ful exploitation  and  illustration,  too  much  method  and  dress  parade 
in  the  teaching.  The  cold  and  sad  fact  is  that  men  and  women 
whose  knowledge  of  physiology  is  utterly  repudiated  by  our  experts 
in  physiology  and  whose  reasoning  is  ridiculed  by  our  leaders  in 
logic,  are  assuming  with  entire  confidence  to  teach  physiological  psy- 
chology in  the  schools.  If  the  professors  in  the  colleges  enjoy  it, 
and  their  students  will  stand  it,  perhaps  we  can  let  it  alone,  for  they 
have  the  means  of  correcting  it  within  their  own  number,  but  it 
is  high  time  to  protest  when  primary  teachers  are  led  to  believe  that 
they  are  bound  to  know  all  about  this  mass  of  superficial  stuff  and 
that  they  must  inflict  it  upon  the  children  in  the  elementary  schools. 

The  reason  why  so  many  children  leave  the  elementary  schools 


i6 

before  finishing  the  course  is  not  so  much  because  their  parents 
need  their  labor,  or  because  the  law  says  they  may,  as  because  there 
is  too  much  wandering  around  in  tall  grass,  too  much  time  wasted 
in  the  merely  incidental  accompaniments  of  schools  and  of  teaching. 
It  is  because  the  work  of  the  schools  is  behind  the  ages  of  the  chil- 
dren. It  is  because  the  work  which  we  set  to  be  done  by  a  woman 
teacher  in  the  fifth  grade  and  the  way  we  expect  her  to  do  it  can  no 
longer  be  tolerated  by  a  boy  passing  into  his  fifteenth  year. 

The  hard  fact  is  that  we  ought  to  get  children  well  started  earlier 
and  push  them  along  from  one  grade  to  another  more  rapidly  than 
we  do,  and  I  entertain  no  doubt  but  that  we  ought  to  do  the  work 
we  do  in  the  elementary  grades,  or  such  parts  of  it  as  are  funda- 
mental and  potential,  in  at  least  one  less  year  than  we  take  for  it. 
In  any  event,  if  our  elementary  school  system  is  to  continue  to  do 
about  the  work  which  is  now  assigned  to  it,  it  must  make  a  point 
of  getting  children  to  the  end  of  it  by  the  time  they  finish  their  four- 
teenth year.  It  is  monstrous  that  two  thirds  of  the  children  of  the 
State  do  not  go  through  the  elementary  schools.  If  great  numbers 
of  them  do  it  at  all  they  will  have  to  do  it  by  the  time  they  are  fif- 
teen. Long  before  that  their  minds  should  be  directed  toward 
definite  work  which  they  may  do,  and  may  like  to  do ;  and  when  that 
time  comes,  they  should  be  put  to  doing  it  and  helped  to  do  it  ex- 
actly and  well,  to  the  end  that  they  may  have  some  pleasure  in  it. 
To  that  we  will  now  direct  our  attention. 

Good  citizenship  dependent  upon  workmen 

I  hesitate  not  a  moment  in  saying  that  good  citizenship  and  the 
thrift  and  morals  of  the  country  are  quite  as  dependent  upon  the 
mass  being  trained  to  skilled  work  with  their  hands,  as  upon  a  class 
being  advanced  in  scientific  knowledge  or  in  professional  accom- 
plishments. The  greatness  of  the  nation  is  contingent  upon  bring- 
ing the  truths  which  science  unlocks  to  the  life,  and  particularly  to 
the  vocations,  of  the  people.  But  that  can  be  done  only  where  a 
people  is  inured  to  work;  where  they  have,  and  love,  vocations. 

The  successful  workman  is  a  happier  man  and  a  more  reliable 
citizen,  a  much  larger  factor  in  giving  strength  and  balance  to  his 
country,  than  the  unsuccessful  or  the  only  half  successful  profes- 
sional man.  It  adds  little  to  one's  value  as  a  civic  unit  that  he  be 
elaborately  trained  in  theory,  or  in  science,  or  in  skill,  if  his  training 
has  been  at  the  cost  of  his  balance;  if  he  knows  one  thing  at  the 
expense  of  many  other  things  which  every  good  citizen  is  bound  to 


17 

know,  and  of  that  balance  which  every  good  citizen  is  bound  to 
have.  And  it  makes  little  addition  to  the  strength  of  a  nation  that 
some  of  the  people  have  the  highest  learning,  even  that  the  advanced 
schools  and  the  professional  life  are  overcrowded,  if  the  masses 
have  not  love  and  capacity  for  growing  things  and  for  making 
things.  /' 

Thex  scientific  habit  and  the  zeal  for  exact  knowledge  and  the 
superior  work  of  the  gymnasia  and  of  the  universities,  caused  Ger- 
many, thirty  years  ago,  first  to  note  the  educational  difficulty  which 
we  are  beginning  to  realize.  It  was  this  which  led  the  young  Em- 
peror to  say  to  the  Berlin  Conference  on  Secondary  Education,  in 
1890,  "  The  course  of  training  in  our  schools  is  defective  in  many 
ways.  The  chief  reason  is  that  since  the  year  1870  the  classical 
philologists  have  laid  the  chief  emphasis  on  the  subject-matter  of 
instruction,  on  learning  and  knowing,  not  on  the  formation  of  char- 
acter and  the  actual  needs  of  life.  .  .  The  demands  made  in  the 
examinations  show  that  less  stress  is  laid  on  practical  ability  than 
on  knowledge.  The  underlying  principle  of  this  is  that  the  scholar 
must,  above  all  things,  know  as  much  as  possible;  whether  that 
knowledge  fits  the  actual  needs  of  after  life  is  a  secondary  considera- 
tion. .  .  The  chief  defect  in  our  schools  is  the  lack  of  a  na- 
tional basis  for  the  instruction.  .  .  Our  schools  have  undertaken  a 
task  beyond  human  strength,  and  have,  in  my  opinion,  caused  an 
overproduction  of  highly  educated  people, —  more  than  the  nation 
can  bear." 

There  will  be  those  in  this  country  who  will  say  that  this  was 
the  expression  of  royal  exclusiveness,  even  of  royal  apprehension 
lest  the  liberal  education  of  the  masses  should  make  for  demo- 
cratic rather  than  monarchical  reign.  It  is  the  fact,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  Emperor  was  obliged  to  withstand  that  objection, 
raised  in  the  inner  circles  of  his  court,  because  no  less  an  authority 
than  Prince  Hohenlohe,  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  in  the  memoirs 
just  published  to  the  annoyance  of  the  Emperor,  reveals  opposition 
by  the  nobility  on  the  ground  that  to  change  the  labor  of  the 
German  people,  in  whole  or  in  part,  from  agrarian  to  manufacturing 
industries  was  to  promote  democracy  and  endanger  monarchism. 
Of  course  the  Emperor  had  no  thought  of  inviting  a  tide  which 
would  engulf  his  throne.  He  was  not  lessening  liberal  learning, 
but  he  was  trying  to  bring  industrial  power  into  vital  relations,  and 
therefore  into  equilibrium,  with  it.  He  was  enlarging  the  material, 
and  therefore  the  military,  strength  of  an  empire  which  is  encom- 
passed by  rivals,  if  not  foes,  on  every  side.  It  is  much  to  his 


i8 

credit  that  he  was  doing  it  with  discrimination  and  without  fear; 
that  he  could  foresee  the  imperative  basis  of  German  power;  and 
that  he  was  able  to  establish  that  balance  between  material  and 
intellectual  wealth  which  would  enlarge,  and  has  enlarged,  both  in 
the  German  Empire. 

Lack  of  industrial  training  in  American  schools 

There  is  nothing  which  now  appeals  to  the  popular  fancy  in 
America  so  much  as  "  industrial  training."  The  newspapers  are 
full  of  it.  Every  public  audience  responds  to  it  quickly.  The 
authorities  of  charitable  and  penal  institutions  are  trying  to  install 
it.  The  school  boards  are  all  in  favor  of  it  but  hardly  know  how 
to  accomplish  it.  They  do  something  about  it  because  they  dare 
not  do  nothing.  They  do  not  do  much  because  the  pedagogical 
mind  is  not  very  clear  about  policies  and  plans,  because  the  pro- 
fessional and  capitalistic  classes  are  too  often  uninformed,  un- 
interested, or  selfish  about  it,  and  because  the  labor  organizations 
are  skeptical  about  its  ultimate  effect  upon  the  scale  of  wages.  The 
confusion  and  uncertainty  are  widespread. 

Nor  is  this  all.  Up  to  this  time  the  American  spirit  has  made 
"  industrial  training  "  a  very  different  thing  in  the  American  mind 
from  what  it  is  in  the  minds  of  other  peoples.  In  our  mind  it  is, 
in  part,  culturing,  an  aid  to  industrial  or  engineering  leadership, 
something  that  will  lift  one  to  a  place  above  that  of  the  ordinary 
workman.  Accordingly,  we  have  installed  it  at  the  top  of  the 
educational  system  and  left  the  bottom  to  take  care  of  itself.  In 
the  minds  of  other  peoples  it  means  craftsmanship,  the  training  of 
the  masses  in  good  workmanship.  Accordingly,  they  have  in- 
trenched it  at  the  bottom  of  their  educational  systems  and  left  the 
top  to  meet  its  own  needs.  The  top  is  more  able  than  the  bottom 
to  get  what  it  needs.  ^Whatever  the  motive  or  the  logic,  Germany 
is  educationally  more  democratic  than  the  United  States. 

We  have  never  to  any  extent  undertaken  to  provide  vocational 
training,  or  even  any  direct  preparation  for  craftsmanship,  in  the 
public  elementary  schools.  Here  and  there  in  the  cities,  kinder- 
gartens, or  a  mixture  of  kindergartens  and  the  first  primary  grades, 
have  been  established.  It  was  done  only  after  private  kindergartens 
had  proved  their  worth.  There  have  been  movements  for  the  ex- 
tension of  both  free-hand  and  mechanical  drawing,  on  the  ground 
that  we  must  give  art  its  opportunity  and  prepare  for  the  manual 
training  work  in  the  high  schools.  In  very  few  places  have  we  gone 
farther  in  the  lower  schools. 


19 

In  the  city  of  Cleveland,  fifteen  years  ago,  some  phases  of  me- 
chanical and  domestic  work  were  introduced  into  every  grade  of 
all  of  the  elementary  schools,  and  I  am  informed  that  it  still  con- 
tinues. In  the  four  lower  grades  it  consisted  of  sand  molding, 
clay  modeling,  paper  folding,  outlining  with  the  needle,  construc- 
tion through  the  use  of  cardboard,  and  all  phases  of  elementary 
drawing.  The  aesthetic  taste  was  incidentally  commenced  to  be 
developed  by  combining  colors  and  arranging  objects.  In  the  fifth 
and  sixth  grades  simple  geometrical  forms,  derived  from  the  study 
of  paper  and  clay  forms  in  the  grades  below,  and  cut  in  wood  by 
the  use  of  the  knife,  rule,  square,  compass,  and  pencil,  were  given 
the  boys,  and  simple  needle  work,  involving  the  principal  stitches 
in  plain  sewing,  was  given  the  girls.  This  was  done  by  the  class 
at  their  desks,  under  the  direction  of  the  class  teachers  after  they 
had  been  instructed  at  grade  meetings  by  the  special  supervisor. 
In  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades  the  boys  were  given  light  bench 
work,  and  the  girls  plain  cooking,  and  for  that  purpose  were  sent 
from  each  of  several  buildings  at  appointed  times  to  central  rooms 
specially  prepared,  and  to  teachers  specially  trained  for  the  purpose. 
The  system  operated  smoothly  and  was  enthusiastically  received  in 
the  schools  and  in  the  city.  There  was  nothing  new  about  the  work 
itself,  but  the  adaptation  of  it  to  all  the  grades  in  a  large  city 
system  was  doubtless  unprecedented  in  the  country.  It  certainly 
attracted  much  discussion  and  comment,  and  some  official  and  peda- 
gogical protest.  At  the  National  Meeting  of  Superintendents  at 
Richmond,  Virginia  in  1894,  after  a  supervisor  in  the  Cleveland 
schools  had  presented  a  paper  describing  it,  one  of  the  most  ex- 
perienced and  progressive  school  men  of  the  country  went  directly 
over  to  the  apprehensive  and  subdued  superintendent  from  Cleve- 
land and  asked  "  Is  there  anything  you  don't  propose  to  do  in  the 
primary  schools  ?  "  But  the  industrial  conditions  in  Cleveland  were 
unusually  favorable  to  it.  Moreover,  it  taught  no  trade.  It  led 
to  no  particular  craft.  It  was  more  in  the  direction  of  general 
accomplishments  than  of  specific  efficiency  and  skill.  This  much 
was  true  of  it,  however;  it  formed  some  basis  for  the  work  of 
trades  schools,  as  well  as  of  manual  training  schools  and  tech- 
nological colleges.  Yet  the  skepticism  expressed  at  Richmond  has 
been  widely  and  well  intrenched.  Even  the  very  simple  phases  of 
preparation  for  industrial  vocations  which  aroused  it  have  found 
little  more  than  theoretical  and  halting  acceptance  in  American 
elementary  schools. 


2O 

If  there  is  an  apparent  inconsistency  between  my  demand  that 
the  present  work  in  the  elementary  schools  shall  be  lessened  by 
elimination  or  concentration  and  my  suggestion  that  the  elements  of 
industrial  training  be  added,  let  me  say  that  the  things  of  which 
I  complain  are  continuing,  are  present  every  day  in  the  week  and 
in  every  hour  of  the  day.  They  are  not  only  not  important;  they 
are  a  positive  hindrance  to  the  expeditious  and  exact  training  of 
the  powers  of  the  child.  The  things  that  I  propose  would  oc- 
cupy at  the  most  only  a  couple  of  hours  in  the  week;  they  are 
really  diversions;  they  recognize  the  pedagogical  principle  that  it 
is  quite  as  important  for  the  child  to  do  as  to  think;  and  they 
lead  toward  efficiency  in  a  condition  which  he  is  likely  to  occupy, 
and  will  be  an  advantage  to  him  no  matter  what  his  circumstances 
in  life.  The  taking  out  of  what  I  propose  to  eliminate  and  the 
putting  in  of  what  I  propose  to  include  will  both  be  to  the  intel- 
lectual and  dexterous  advantage  of  the  child.  There  is  no  real 
inconsistency.  And  if  the  one  thing  is  done  there  will  be  abundant 
room  for  the  other. 

Above  the  elementary  schools,  industrial  and  vocational  work 
has  been  given  larger  opportunity.  In  a  great  many  of  the  high 
schools  there  are  courses  in  manual  training,  and  in  all  of  the  larger 
city  systems  there  are  manual  training  high  schools.  No  one  claims 
that  this  has  much  bearing  upon  craftsmanship.  At  the  most  it 
can  relate  to  only  a  small  part  of  the  children  who  go  to  the  public 
schools,  and  as  to  them,  it  is  for  intellectual  quickening  or  prepara- 
tion for  one  of  the  engineering  professions,  or  for  the  training  of 
men  to  direct  other  men  who  work  with  their  hands. 

In  recent  years  some  special  vocations,  like  stenography  and  type- 
writing, and  other  things  relating  to  office  work,  have  found  their 
way  into  the  public  secondary  schools.  Three  or  four  public  vo- 
cational schools,  of  secondary  grade,  supported  by  a  municipality 
or  partly  by  the  municipality  and  partly  by  the  state,  like  the  Wash- 
ington Irving  High  School  of  New  York  City,  The  Textile  School  of 
Lowell,  Mass.,  the  Central  High  School  of  Commerce  of  Philadel- 
phia, and  some  of  the  evening  high  schools  of  Buffalo  and  New 
York  City  have  been  established.  But  their  very  names  prove 
How  far  they  are  from  the  training  of  the  masses  in  workmanship. 

Many  of  the  universities,  particularly  the  land  grant  and  tax 
supported  universities,  have  great  engineering  schools,  but  their 
work  all  leads  essentially  to  the  industrial  professions  rather  than 
to  craftsmanship,  although  doubtless  the  sense  which  they  drill 
into  the  heads  of  their  students  concerning  the  honor  which  belongs 


I  i  ,          •*    •  n  E 

*»S/TV 


OF 

21  ^^ 


to  the  man  who  can  do  fine  work  with  his  hands,  and  likes  to  work 
in  a  blouse,  is  adding  somewhat  to  the  attractiveness  of  skilled  labor. 

Private  business  schools  which,  for  profit,  have  undertaken  to 
train  pupils  in  simpler  mathematics,  bookkeeping,  stenography, 
business  forms,  and  the  like,  have  been  a  great  help  to  many  for 
a  long  time.  Many  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations 
have  established  schools  of  this  kind,  and  some  of  them  are  be- 
ginning to  include  trades  schools  in  their  scheme.  Several  cor- 
respondence schools  have  attracted  thousands  of  pupils  and  de- 
veloped the  existence  of  a  widespread  desire  for  self -improvement. 
In  New  York  City  one  company  of  financiers,  merchants,  and 
real  estate  men,  and  another  company  interested  in  house  furnish- 
ing and  decorating,  and  yet  another  interested  in  the  building  trades, 
and  still  another  interested  in  the  automobile  trade,  and  doubtless 
many  others,  have  set  up  schools  or  lecture  courses  for  the  special 
training  of  competent  assistants.  Some  of  the  great  manufacturing 
or  construction  companies,  like  the  Westinghouse  Electric  Company 
and  the  Baldwin  Locomotive  Works,  have  set  up  schools  of  their 
own.  They  have  prepared  schoolrooms,  employed  efficient  teachers, 
and  laid  out  very  considerable  courses  of  work  in  order  to  train 
men  for  their  own  service.  They  take  young  men  on  trial  for 
perhaps  six  months,  and  if  they  show  some  proficiency  and  aptitude, 
and  will  bind  themselves  to  remain  and  follow  their  work  for  a 
term  of  three  or  four  years,  they  enter  into  written  agreement  with 
them  to  that  effect,  and  during  the  period  they  work  in  the  shop 
they  are  under  instruction  and  receive  moderate  pay  upon  a  schedule 
which  gradually  advances  as  the  apprentice  may  be  assumed  to 
grow  in  competency. 

But  all  this,  if  it  illustrates  anything,  shows  the  general  lack  of 
preparation  for  vocational  employments  in  the  United  States,  and 
the  disconnected,  very  often  unsubstantial,  and  ordinarily  self- 
interested  and  sporadic  movements  to  overcome  the  difficulty,  rather 
than  any  general  plan  for  meeting  a  very  wide  and  very  imperative 
demand. 

I  have  been  speaking  in  a  general  way  of  vocations  common  to 
boys,  but  the  situation  is  no  less  urgent  as  to  girls.  \  While  the  old 
apprenticeship  system  has  been  gradually  disappearing,  and  boys 
have  been  going  from  the  country  to  the  cities,  and  machinery  has 
wrought  such  changes  in  men's  work,  the  old-fashioned  kind  of 
housekeeping  which  trained  girls  to  expertness  in  the  household 
arts,  has  been  disappearing  also.  Vocations  which  were  formerly 
open  only  to  boys  are  now  open  to  girls,  with  the  result  that  by  the 


22 

tens  of  thousands  they  know  nothing  of  good  home  making,  and, 
worse  than  that,  they  are  proud  of  it.  It  is  bad  enough  for  an 
attractive  young  miss  to  be  unable  to  make  a  loaf  of  bread,  or 
broil  a  steak,  or  use  a  needle;  the  limit  is  passed  when  a  college 
makes  her  such  a  little  idiot  as  to  think  it  is  smart  to  boast  of  it. 
The  schools  are  not  so  responsible  for  this  as  the  mothers  are, 
but  perhaps  the  schools  ought  to  join  with  the  mothers  in  the  effort 
to  cure  it.  And  aside  from  the  employments  of  women  relating 
to  the  household,  the  business  employments  which  women  are  enter- 
ing in  such  great  numbers  may  well  concern  the  schools.  And 
moreover,  the  principle  that  all  educational  opportunities,  or  their 
unquestioned  equivalents,  are  to  be  extended  to  girls  and  boys  alike, 
is  to  have  acceptance  and  expression  in  all  parts  of  this  country. 

Therefore,  we  may  sum  up  this  phase  of  our  theme  thus:  The 
public  school  system  has  had  but  little  thought  of  craftsmanship, 
by  which  the  greater  part  of  the  people  must  live,  and  upon  which 
the  moral  and  intellectual  health  of  the  people  and  the  greatness 
of  the  nation  must  depend;  the  work  of  the  schools  has  led  almost 
exclusively  to  mere  culture  and  to  professional  and  managing  em- 
ployments; the  efficiency  of  the  teachers  has  been  measured  by  the 
number  and  training  of  the  pupils  they  sent  to  the  grade  above,  and 
thus  the  pupils  have  been  led  to  think  that  the  grade  above  was 
the  goal  of  life;  and  the  grade  above  has  led  to  literature  and  the 
sciences  and  to  professional  and  managing  vocations.  This  has 
taken  a  great  many  into  situations  for  which  they  were  not  adapted, 
and  has  overstocked  the  professions;  has  resulted  in  too  many 
partial  or  complete  failures,  and  is  operating  both  to  the  industrial 
and  intellectual  disadvantage  of  the  country. 

American  aims 

It  is  clear  enough  that  we  will  not  only  have  to  reckon  with 
German  industrialism,  but  also  that  we  may  learn  much  to  our 
advantage  from  the  German  system  of  education,  and  I  shall  there- 
fore not  hesitate  to  draw  as  many  comparisons  with  Germany  as  I 
may.  We  must  distinguish  a  difference  in  aim  and  purpose,  how- 
ever, and  can  do  it  none  too  clearly,  nor  too  soon.  It  is  a  difference 
which  is  of  national  concern  to  us.  The  German  purpose  seems 
to  be  to  train  boys  and  girls  so  as  to  add  to  the  physical  and 
therefore  to  the  military  strength  of  the  empire.  The  American  pur- 
pose is  to  train  boys  and  girls  so  as  to  enable  them  to  make  the 
most  of  themselves.  Our  ideal  seems  the  noblest,  but  as  yet  the 
Germans  are  widely  and  more  uniformly  realizing  their  ideal  better 


23 

than  we  are  ours.  Of  course,  in  the  one  case,  the  training  for 
national  strength  incidentally  makes  useful  and  potential  men  and 
women;  and  of  course,  in  the  other  case,  training  for  the  highest 
possibilities  of  manhood  and  womanhood  incidentally  makes  for  the 
greatness  of  the  nation.  But  a  national  policy  which  gives  every 
man  his  opportunity  ought  to  make  a  larger  percentage  of  pro- 
ductive, and  therefore  happier  men,  and  in  the  end,  an  infinitely 
more  versatile  and  potential  people,  if  it  can  be  carried  out  in  ways 
which  will  not  give  youth  a  beclouded  outlook  and  lead  to  too 
many  misfits  between  adaptation  and  opportunity. 

It  can  not  have  escaped  our  observation,  moreover,  that  one 
who  starts  out  for  a  professional  or  managing  vocation  and  fails, 
never  takes  up  craftsmanship  afterwards  and  succeeds;  while  a 
good  craftsman  sometimes  develops  into  an  excellent  professional 
man,  and  very  often  develops  into  the  very  best  kind  of  a  manager 
of  his  craft.  And  it  is  worse  than  idle,  because  it  is  justly  pro- 
ductive of  false  standards  and  of  ill-will,  to  put  one  to  managing 
any  business  or  any  work,  who  has  not  learned  the  business  by 
I  exploiting  its  processes  from  the  bottom  up  to  the  place  which  he 
f  has  come  to  occupy.  Right  there  is  one  of  the  essential  weaknesses 
of  our  American  business  life.  Through  our  ambitions,  through 
a  rather  hazy  notion  that  we  can  hold  any  place  we  can  get  into,/ 
and  do  anything  we  can  get  a  chance  to  do,  through  fortune  or! 
favoritism  coupled  with  a  fallacious  logic  about  preparation,  men 
get  into  positions  where  they  exercise  control  over  other  men  who 
really  understand  the  details  of  the  craft  or  the  business  better 
than  their  overseers  do.  It  all  illustrates  the  vital  need  of  broader 
training  for  craftsmanship  at  the  foundations  of  the  craft  and  in 
the  early  years  of  the  youth's  life,  if  all  are  to  have  an  equal 
chance,  and  if  boys  are  not  to  advance  to  pitfalls  because  handi- 
capped with  superficiality. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  truly  said  that  in  the  State  of  New 
York  there  is  now  less  difficulty  about  the  constitution  of  the  pro- 
fessions than  about  organized  commercial  or  industrial  effective- 
ness. No  one  can  get  into  the  professions  of  law  or  medicine 
without  four  years  in  the  secondary  school,  four  more  in  the  pro- 
fessional school,  a  professional  degree  from  an  institution  author- 
ized to  confer  it,  and  passing  the  State  professional  examination; 
while  one  can,  and  often  does,  get  to  a  high  position  in  a  bank,  or 
a  department  store,  or  a  factory,  or  a  railroad,  without  any  edu- 
cational requirements  or  any  practical  experience;  and  if  he  has 
dabbled  in  economics,  the  theory  of  accounts,  and  the  like,  in  college, 


24 

under  a  professor  who  never  had  any  practical  experience,  and 
never  accomplished  anything  in  business,  he  is  deemed  to  be 
specially  prepared  to  manage  the  whole  thing.  It  illustrates  again 
the  fallacy  of  our  standards  and  the  readiness  with  which  American 
spirit  and  ambition  is  permitted  to  start  at  the  top,  when  it  should 
be  required  to  start  at  the  bottom,  of  great  businesses.  It  explains 
also  the  cause  of  so  many  misfits,  accidents  and  failures. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  it  should  not  lead  us  to  overlook  the  fact 
that  mere  experience  without  the  study  of  fundamental  principles, 
and  a  knowledge  of  the  history  of  related  subjects,  is  not  so  very 
much  better.  One  course  makes  for  conceited  superficiality,  and 
the  other  for  conceited  narrowness.  There  is  small  difference. 
The  true  course,  if  we  are  to  provide  the  best  possible  training,  is 
through  practical  experience  associated  with  scholastic  and  scientific 
training,  through  the  association  of  real  business  with  the  work  of 
the  schools.  If  we  are  to  do  it  for  some  people,  and  would  be  just, 
we  must  do  it  for  all  people. 

What  are  we  to  do? 

While  the  schools  are  providing  every  conceivable  kind  of  in- 
struction for  the  head  workers,  the  hand  workers  leave  instruction 
altogether  when  they  leave  the  elementary  schools,  and  that  is 
commonly  before  they  are  prepared  for  work  or  are  mature  enough 
to  plan  for  themselves.  What  little  has  been  done  for  these  has  been 
isolated  and  unsystematic,  and  done  by  private  enterprise.  Thus 
the  public  school  system  is  one-sided, —  unjust  to  the  greater  num- 
ber and  inefficient  in  meeting  an  overwhelming  phase  of  the  na- 
tion's educational  need.  To  be  consistent  we  must  do  less  for  the 
head  workers,  or  more  for  the  hand  workers.  We  will  not  go  back. 
All,  not  some,  education  is  a  passion  in  America.  We  will  go 
forward. 

But  just  how?  It  is  a  large  matter.  It  means  much  more  ex- 
pense —  but  that  is  the  least  of  it.  It  involves  a  large  new  chapter 
in  our  educational  theory,  a  serious  study  of  other  educational 
systems,  radical  changes  in  schoolhouses  and  courses,  the  training 
of  a  different  class  of  teachers.  Before  that  can  be  commenced, 
or  while  it  is  being  done,  there  will  have  to  be  much  discussion,  a 
great  deal  of  missionary  work,  a  consolidation  of  sentiment,  and 
many  new  laws.  The  people  of  the  schools  may  well  have  a  plan, 
and  one  that  is  well  fortified  by  theory  and  by  fact,  if  they  can. 

It  is  but  just  to  ourselves  to  say  that  the  problem  seems  less 
difficult  in  other  countries  because  the  social  cleavage  is  more  dis- 


.' 

25 

tinct,  children  expect  to  continue  upon  the  plane  in  which  they 
were  born,  and  the  masses  expect  to  work  with  their  hands.  More- 
over, the  governments  are  beginning  to  see  that  the  strength  of 
the  nation  depends  upon  training  workmen,  and  the  outlook  of  the 
government  settles  things.  We  do  not  worry  about  the  strength 
of  the  United  States.  We  take  that  for  granted.  We  are  for 
giving  every  one  his  chance,  and  for  helping  every  one  to  make  the 
most  of  himself.  The  course  of  other  nations  leaves  out  individual 
possibilities.  It  cares  little  for  the  individual  as  such.  It  neither 
reckons  with  nor  promotes  such  an  ambitious,  buoyant,  confident, 
aggressive  national  temperament  as  is  common  in  the  United  States. 
Nevertheless,  our  course  is  producing  a  temperament  which  is 
top-heavy  with  self-satisfaction,  and  doubtless  needs  more  ballast 
in  the  hold.  We  would  not  lose  our  optimistic  temperament  if 
we  could:  we  will  restore  the  balance. 

If  we  compare  with  Germany  we  shall  do  it  with  the  best  of  them 
so  far  as  training  for  hand  industry  is  concerned.  There  is  no 
other  great  nation  where  education  is  at  once  so  scientific,  so  bal- 
anced, so  effective,  and  so  free  —  scientific  through  research  and 
the  habit  of  taking  pains  —  balanced  because  the  educational  system 
has  come  to  be  a  pyramid  with  industrialism  at  its  base  —  effective 
because  the  habit  of  sending  children  to  school  with  regularity  is 
universal  —  and  free  through  the  clear  appreciation  of  the  fact 
that  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  state  is  entirely  consistent  with  the 
purest  democracy  in  learning. 

England  has  trades  schools  of  all  kinds  and  in  great  numbers. 
But  England  has  no  continuing,  consistent,  and  coherent  system  of 
schools,  beginning  in  the  street  and  leading  either  to  a  profession 
or  to  a  trade,  and  offering  the  opportunity  of  selection  at  some 
definite  point  upon  the  road.  The  aristocracy  prepare  for  exclusive 
and  literary  colleges  in  private  and  exclusive  schools.  The  children 
of  the  masses  have  to  go  to  elementary  schools  wfiich  are  not  free 
in  the  sense  that  our  schools  are  free :  they  get  a  very  excellent 
training  in  elementary  English :  if  they  go  farther  they  finish  in 
trades  schools  that  are  more  shoppish  than  schoolish,  and  possibly 
the  better  for  it.  But  the  lines  are  arbitrary  and  hard:  there  is 
little  individualism  and  no  choice.  English  education  has  a  hard 
time  getting  over  the  idea  that,  without  regard  to  the  personal 
equation,  some  men  are  to  rule  and  others  are  to  serve;  that  the 
English  school  above  the  elementary  must  train  the  English  "  gen- 
tleman;" and  that  the  elementary  school  must  train  the  child  of 
the  masses  in  ways  that  will  make  it  clear  to  him  that  his  business 
in  life  is  to  serve. 


26 

One  of  the  most  illuminating  members  of  the  English  Educational 
Commission,  which  recently  visited  this  country  under  the  patronage 
of  Mr  Alfred  Mosely,  said  in  his  report  that  the  difficulty  with 
the  English  elementary  schools  was  that  pupils  left  them  without 
any  desire  to  learn  anything  more.  The  social  cleavage  takes  hold 
at  the  very  beginning  in  the  schools,  there  is  no  system  of  middle 
schools  and  therefore  no  connection  between  the  higher  and  the 
lower  schools,  and  the  lines  are  so  rigid  that  they  hinder  the  best 
results  in  both  the  upper  and  the  nether  classes.  The  English 
nobleman  has  no  thought  of  permitting  his  personal  comfort  and 
his  political  control  to  be  disturbed  by  allowing  the  "  serving  classes  " 
to  know  too  much;  and  the  English  nobleman  will  come  to  be  less 
a  nobleman,  and  the  British  nation  will  come  to  be,  relatively  speak- 
ing, less  a  power,  unless  there  is  a  radical  change  about  it. 

France  began  the  systematic  training  of  hand  workers  long  years 
ago,  and  the  result  is  quickly  apparent  in  the  trades,  industries, 
and  arts  of  the  French  people.  There  are  hundreds  of  trades  schools 
in  Paris  and  thousands  throughout  France.  They  are  highly  effi- 
cient; they  turn  out  artists  and  craftsmen  of  the  very  first  order; 
it  is  apparently  very  easy  for  France  to  make  a  most  attractive 
exhibit  in  the  international  expositions.  But  it  does  seem  as  though 
the  system  is  both  arbitrary  and  narrow.  It  is  so  absolutely  di- 
rected from  the  center,  so  oppressed  with  ministerial  regulation, 
so  oppressed  with  apprehension  about  a  real  democratic  advance, 
that  it  develops  mere  craftsmen  and  artists,  rather  than  free,  all- 
around  men  and  women. 

Practically  all  of  the  children  of  Germany,  boys  and  girls,  rich 
and  poor,  high  and  low,  up  to  about  their  fourteenth  year,  go  to 
elementary  schools,  established,  supported,  and  directed  by  the  state. 
The  teacher  is  a  professional,  the  course  exact,  the  attendance  uni- 
versal, and  the  expectations  of  the  state  are  very  completely  realized. 
The  idea  does  not  yet  prevail  that  girls  should  go  beyond  the 
secondary  schools.  At  about  ten  years  of  age  the  boys  and  their 
parents  are  expected  to  determine  whether  they  will  fit  for  a  trade 
or  a  profession.  If  for  a  trade,  they  go  at  fourteen  either  to  a 
shop  as  an  apprentice,  or  to  a  trades  school.  If  for  a  profession, 
they  go  to  a  "  gymnasium,"  which  is  a  school  of  two  kinds,  of  which 
one  is  more  literary  and  classical  and  one  more  scientific  than  the 
other,  and  the  boy  takes  one  or  the  other  according  to  the  profession 
he  has  in  mind.  He  enters  the  gymnasium  at  ten  or  eleven  and 
gets  out  at  nineteen  or  twenty,  and  then  has  been  carried  to  about 
the  middle  of  our  college  course. 


The  secondary  schools  separate  again  into  schools  which  train 
for  the  literary  and  the  scientific  professions  on  one  side,  and  for 
the  commercial  and  technological  professions  on  the  other,  while 
the  lower  trades  schools  lead  straight  to  manual  workmanship. 
Following  the  secondary  commercial  and  technical  schools  we  find 
them  again  branching  into  what  may  be  called  the  industrial  pro- 
fessions, which  involve  a  masterful  knowledge  of  the  finest  ma- 
terials, the  finest  workmanship,  and  the  finest  completed  goods ;  the 
commercial  schools,  which  involve  a  like  masterful  knowledge  of 
the  ways  to  develop  and  manage  trade ;  and  the  engineering  schools, 
which  involve  an  equally  masterful  knowledge  of  the  construction 
of  public  works.  And  there  is  no  difficulty  in  keeping  along  these 
industrial  lines  until  one  finds  himself  in  the  universities  or  the 
highest  technical  schools,  where  the  world  knowledge  of  the  subject 
is  present,  and  one  can  get  to  the  very  mountain  peaks  if  he  has 
strength,  endurance,  and  persistence  which  are  equal  to  the  under- 
taking. 

Our  concern  just  now  is  with  the  primary  and  trades  schools. 
There  is  some  classification  of  pupils,  even  in  the  primary  schools, 
according  to  the  means  of  the  parents,  for  tuition  is  exacted  and 
it  is  larger  for  some  studies  than  for  others,  and  the  instruction 
from  the  beginning  has  some  reference  to  the  situation  and  purposes 
in  life  of  the  pupils.  There  is  little  reason  to  doubt,  however, 
that  the  instruction  for  all  pupils  is  equally  exact  and  painstaking, 
or  that  the  spirit  is  exceedingly  democratic,  and  that  all  pupils  have 
equal  opportunities  to  perfect  themselves  in  the  business  which  they 
elect  to  follow. 

The  children  who  have  remained  in  the  primary  schools,  thereby 
practically  signifying  their  purpose  to  become  what,  for  clearness 
and  convenience,  I  designate  by  the  term  "  wage  earners  "  and  who 
finish  at  about  fourteen,  then  go  to  "  continuation  schools,"  which 
are  of  many  kinds.  The  greater  part  teach  the  trades.  These 
schools  do  not  take  the  whole  time  of  the  child,  but  perhaps  eight 
or  ten  hours  each  week,  often  in  the  evenings,  and  commonly  so 
distributed  as  not  to  interfere  with  other  regular  employment.  At- 
tendance at  the  continuation  or  trades  schools  is  compulsory,  and 
employers  are  required  to  so  arrange  matters  that  employees  may 
attend  them. 

As  I  am  not  attempting  a  description  of  the  German  system  of 
schools  I  shall  go  no  farther  except  as  to  trades  schools,  but  it  must 
already  be  appreciated  that  German  schools  are  provided  for  every 
conceivable  purpose  in  life,  that  nothing  e.rcuses  from  attendance, 


28 

and  that  the  schools  keep  possession  of  the  child  up  to  the  sixteenth 
or  seventeenth  year.  Beyond  this  it  must  now  be  seen  that  the 
overwhelming  idea  is  that  those  who  will  make  good  craftsmen 
shall  not  be  encouraged  to  make  poor  professional  men,  or  forced 
to  attempt  to  manage  men  before,  through  actual  experience,  they 
show  a  capacity  to  do  so.  Or  if  this  is  not  wholly  so,  it  is  essen- 
tially so  as  to  the  poorer  people  who  can  not  afford  to  be  misled 
or  to  indulge  in  a  speculation  which  involves  the  hazard  of  useful 
and  therefore  successful  and  happy  lives.  And  it  seems  as  though 
it  does  not  stand  in  the  way  of  one's  ultimately  gaining  any  position 
to  which  his  capacity  may  be  adapted. 

One  who  would  well  understand  the  German  trades  schools  will 
not  expect  to  get  instruction  from  me,  or  in  this  way.  The  literature 
of  the  subject  is  coming  to  be  available,  and  it  will  have  to  be 
studied  by  one  who  would  be  informed.  A  description  here  must 
necessarily  be  very  superficial.  Yet,  enough  may  be  said  to  arouse 
wider  inquiry.  The  schools  seem  to  extend  to  every  possible  vo- 
cation. It  is  clear  that  there  is  much  flexibility,  which  results  in 
the  adaptation  of  schools  to  local  industries.  There  may  be  scores 
or  hundreds  of  them  in  a  city,  and  they  will  be  doing  the  kind  of 
work  demanded  by  the  industries  of  the  place  and  the  thought  of 
the  people.  They  are  essentially  shops,  but  the  book  knowledge 
needful  to  a  general  understanding  of  the  work  is  not  neglected. 
Still  they  are  essentially  shops,  the  buildings  constructed  like  shops, 
and  the  equipment  and  atmosphere  leaving  no  doubt  about  the 
purpose  to  train  youth  to  earn  a  living  with  their  hands.  They  are 
evidently  sustained  and  guided  by  the  allied  trades,  and  do  not 
seem  ,to  incur  opposition  because  they  may  multiply  workmen.  It 
looks  as  though  it  is  accepted  that  their  number,  extent,  and  output 
will,  like  the  trades  themselves,  respond  to  the  economic  laws  of 
demand  and  supply.  Indeed,  it  is  clear  that  while  the  town  com- 
monly meets  the  expense,  it  is  sometimes  done  by  commercial  bodies 
and  trade  organizations.  Sometimes  the  state  supplies  the  entire 
expense,  but  oftener  it  provides  a  subsidy  equal  to  one  half  or  one 
third  of  the  cost. 

We  must  distinguish  between  the  "  continuation  schools  "  and  the 
"trades  schools."  The  former  do  not  confine  their  work  to  any 
single  branch  of  trade  or  industry.  They  attempt  to  provide  in- 
struction in  fundamental  industrial  knowledge.  Their  main 
branches  are  German,  arithmetic  and  drawing.  They  are  essentially 
for  youth  who  have  been  obliged  to  go  to  work,  who  have  begun  to 
feel  the  need  of  more  teaching,  and  who  have  a  general  rather  than 


29 

a  specific  aim  in  view.  They  are  held  largely  in  the  evenings  and 
on  Sundays.  The  reading,  the  arithmetic,  and  the  drawing  are 
all  adapted  to  industrial  or  commercial  ends.  In  many  cities  con- 
tinuation schools  are  being  changed  into  trades  schools.  There  are 
continuation  schools  for  girls  as  well  as  boys.  These  are  necessarily 
more  specific  in  work;  they  teach  sewing,  darning,  mending,  knit- 
ting, cooking,  ironing,  and  other  domestic  arts.  Religious  instruc- 
tion is  often,  if  not  commonly,  associated  with  them.  Continuation 
schools  seem  very  like  the  evening  schools  in  our  cities,  with  the 
difference  perhaps  that  they  seek  competent  artisans,  rather  than 
day  school  teachers,  to  instruct  them,  and  this  of  course  gives  them 
the  atmosphere  and  purposes  of  industrial  schools  to  a  much 
greater  extent  than  is  true  of  our  evening  schools. 

Attendance  is  commonly  compulsory.  In  1902  Prussia  had  1684 
continuation  schools  with  more  than  200,000  pupils.  Bavaria  had 
274  such  schools,  Saxony  44,  Wurtemburg  251,  and  Baden  170. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  these  are  the  lowest  grade  of  schools 
with  very  distinct  industrial  ends.  They  follow  immediately  after 
the  common  and  universal  primary  schools.  But  they  do  not 
always  teach  a  particular  trade. 

The  trades  schools  are  distinguished  from  the  continuation  schools 
in  that  they  do  teach  definite  trades.  They  are  of  all  grades  and 
kinds,  from  the  school  that  teaches  simple  joinery  to  the  one  that 
provides  the  most  exact  instruction  in  the  making  of  china  or  the 
weaving  of  fabrics.  The  curricula  of  these  schools  of  course  de- 
pend upon  the  end  in  view.  The  Germans  have  much  of  what  we 
have  but  little,  namely,  the  "  capacity  for  taking  pains/'  They  train 
for  exact  and  definite  workmanship  in  their  trades  schools.  And 
they  do  not  neglect  the  bookish  side  of  it  either.  They  apparently 
realize,  as  we  do  not,  the  need  of  keeping  one's  head  and  hands  in 
equipoise.  One  may  be  an  ordinary  workman  in  a  simple  trade, 
with  but  a  simple  knowledge  of  what  is  in  the  books,  but  one  can 
not  become  an  expert  and  reliable  craftsman  in  an  intricate  trade 
without  a  head  which  contains  a  very  good  understanding  of  the 
history,  philosophy,  extent,  accomplishments,  and  ambitions  of  the 
trade.  And  one  who  has  that  is  likely  to  have  a  great  deal  more, 
and  to  be  a  balanced  and  influential  citizen. 

The  relations  between  the  separate  trades  and  the  corresponding 
trades  schools  are  close.  That  is  important,  indeed,  it  is  imperative. 
It  may  as  well  be  said  at  once  that  organized  labor  in  America  must 
aid  in  the  upbuilding  of  trades  schools  in  this  country,  or  we  can 
not  hope  for  very  substantial  results.  We  will  recur  to  this  sub- 


30 

ject  at  a  more  appropriate  place.  It  is  sufficient  just  now  to  point 
out  that  in  Germany  the  trades  schools  draw  upon  the  trades  for 
sympathy  and  direction,  and  they  give  back  to  the  trades  in  fresh 
and  ambitious  blood,  in  spirit  and  capacity,  in  the  pleasure  and 
enthusiasm  of  superior  ability  to  develop  intricate  and  fascinating 
work.  //  we  can  not  do  this,  we  may  as  well  face  the  fact  that 
Germany  will  in  the  end  outrun  America  in  industrial  prepotency, 
and  therefore  in  national  productivity  and  power. 

The  German  industrial  schools  are  established  under  all  manner 
of  auspices  —  by  guilds,  trade  associations,  towns,  or  individuals. 
Tuition  is  ordinarily  charged,  but  it  is  small,  and  smaller  for  Ger- 
mans than  for  others.  The  state  often  encourages  these  schools 
with  money,  and  always  with  word  of  mouth  and  guidance.  The 
Emperor  embraces  frequent  opportunities  to  stimulate  them.  The 
Court  has  to  follow  the  Emperor  —  the  present  Emperor  anyway. 
The  nation  is  thoroughly  convinced  that  money  spent  in  trade  in- 
struction is  well  expended.  As  a  result  schools  have  sprung  up  in 
great  numbers  everywhere,  but  they  are  flexible  enough  to  adapt 
themselves  to  the  business  interests  of  every  locality. 

Here  is  a  partial  list  of  the  kinds  of  schools  in  operation :  artistic 
darners,  artificial  flower  makers,  toy  makers,  bakers,  barbers,  basket 
makers,  blacksmiths,  braziers,  bookbinders,  cabinet  makers,  carvers, 
cooks,  carpenters,  confectioners,  dressmakers,  dyers,  embroiderers 
(hand  and  machine),  engravers,  gardeners,  glaziers,  goldsmiths, 
horseshoers,  knitters,  lace  makers,  leather  workers,  locksmiths, 
masons,  milliners,  paper  hangers,  painters,  photographers,  potters, 
printers,  rug  makers,  saddlers,  spinners,  stonecutters,  tinsmiths, 
tailors,  trunk  makers,  watch  makers,  wagon  makers,  wheelwrights. 

In  Germany  the  idea  that  woman's  sphere  is  home-making  has 
not  been  much  broken  in  upon,  and  accordingly  the  trades  schools 
for  women,  of  which  there  are  many,  relate  to  the  domestic  arts 
about  which  women  are  specially  concerned.  This  has  all  developed 
in  the  last  thirty  years,  and  largely  in  the  last  fifteen  years.  It 
has  grown  out  of  the  international  expositions.  It  has  proceeded 
not  only  from  the  sagacity  of  German  statesmanship,  but  from 
the  quick  and  decisive  influence  of  imperial  sagacity  and  power  upon 
German  life.  Doubtless  there  are  some  in  America  yet  who  are 
opposed  to  it  on  that  account ;  who  are  opposed  to  everything,  good 
or  bad,  which  flows  from  the  doings  of  a  monarchial  government, 
no  matter  how  constitutional  it  may  be ;  but  surely  the  time  has 
come  when  the  controlling  judgment  of  this  country  will  not  be  so 
foolish  as  to  refuse  to  adopt  or  adapt  whatever  in  foreign  policy 
may  seem  good  for  American  life. 


There  has  been,  and  there  is  yet  to  some  extent,  a  very  unfortu- 
nate sentiment  in  America  that  efficiency  and  aggressiveness  in  gov- 
ernment is,  of  itself,  monarchial,  and  therefore  undemocratic  and 
Un-American ;  but  the  better  thinking  of  the  country  is  coming  to 
realize  that  while  the  general  opinion  of  the  country  must  deter- 
mine its  policies,  still  an  officer  of  the  state  may  commend  and 
recommend  policies;  and  that  when  policies  receive  the  sanction 
of  common  sentiment,  and  then  of  law,  an  officer  of  our  democratic 
government  is  expected  to  carry  them  out  just  as  forcefully  and 
completely  as  the  officers  of  a  monarchial  government  would  do. 

What  the  Germans  say  of  us 

Germany  sent  an  educational  commission  to  the  St  Louis  Exposi- 
tion in  1904  with  instructions  to  study  the  school  exhibits  at  the 
exposition  and  quietly  investigate  the  educational  system  of  this 
country,  and  then  report  with  particular  reference  to  the  bearing 
of  the  educational  systems  of  their  country  and  ours  upon  German 
and  American  industry  and  trade.  The  commission  pursued  its 
work  very  quietly.  It  did  not  seek  the  lime  light ;  it  did  not  pro- 
claim its  route  of  march  by  the  use  of  a  military  band;  it  circled  the 
educational  conventions;  it  did  not  have  itself  invited  to  dinners 
and  make  speeches  at  us ;  in  some  way  it  even  escaped  the  alert  and 
aggressive  attentions  of  the  press.  The  commission's  report  may  be 
alike  interesting  to  German  and  American  readers,  but  it  is  not 
altogether  satisfactory  to  American  complacency. 

It  declared  that  America  is  abundant  in  resources,  filled  with 
energy,  exceedingly  quickwitted  and  resourceful;  that  a  vigorous 
people  is  possessed  of  such  mighty  and  largely  undeveloped  physi- 
cal resources,  and  has  such  splendid  advantage  in  coast  lines  and 
commercial  situation,  that  undoubtedly  it  will  have  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  the  trade  and  commerce  of  the  somewhat  distant  future; 
but  that  the  United  States  is  so  seriously  handicapped  with  mani- 
fest disadvantages,  of  which  Americans  are  unconscious,  that  no 
American  industrial  competition  at  any  early  day  need  be  taken 
seriously  by  the  German  nation.  They  said  these  disadvantages 
make  a  buoyant  confidence  without  sufficient  underpinning  for  it, 
a  "  feeling  of  complacent  satisfaction  with  everything  American," 
an  expectation  that,  without  much  planning,  and  without  much 
philosophical  study,  or  concerted  action,  or  definite  plan,  or  co- 
operative efficiency,  everything  will  come  out  all  right  whenever  the 
need  of  it  arises.  They  emphasized  the  entire  absence  of  provision 
for  public  schools  supplying  systematic  instruction  in  craftsmanship. 


32 

and  asserted  that  this  lack  is  sufficient  to  overcome  any  natural 
advantage  in  resources  or  geographical  situation.  This  commission 
was  not  constituted  exclusively  of  teachers,  but  of  teachers,  mer- 
chants, manufacturers,  economists,  publicists,  and  constructionists. 
They  were  thinking  much  of  German  trade  and  they  advised  their 
people  not  to  be  disturbed  about  any  American  interference  with 
it  at  an  early  day. 

That  is  certainly  enough  to  make  the  children  of  our  "  Uncle 
Samuel "  sit  bolt  upright  and  look  all  around  the  horizon.  Our 
ideals  are  not  those  of  Germany.  We  are  not  primarily  concerned 
about  breaking  down  German  trade.  We  have  nothing  but  good 
will  towards  our  flaxen-haired  and  interesting  German  cousins.  We 
are  not  apprehensive  about  the  physical  strength,  or,  in  other  words, 
the  war  power,  of  our  nation;  and  we  are  not  going  to  bend  our 
educational  and  industrial  policies  very  exclusively  to  that  end. 
All  of  that  will  take  care  of  itself,  notwithstanding  the  self-satis- 
faction and  complacency  which  the  German  commission  saw  clearly 
and  reported  correctly.  But  we  are  concerned  that  every  American 
child  shall  have  his  or  her  chance ;  that  that  chance  shall  be  at  least 
as  good  and  great  as  the  chance  of  any  child  in  any  nation  upon 
the  earth;  and  that  there  shall  be  nothing  in  the  policies  of  the 
country  to  mislead  any  child  about  his  chance.  We  do  believe  that 
the  greatness  of  this  nation,  the  political  attributes  of  its  citizen- 
ship, and  the  measure  of  its  influence  upon  the  thought  of  other 
nations  and  upon  the  good  of  mankind,  depend  upon  making  all 
that  can  be  made  of  every  son  and  daughter  of  the  Republic;  and 
we  do  know  that  the  physical  and  moral  strength  of  men  and  women 
depend  upon  their  having  and  loving  work,  and  that  their  having 
and  loving  work  depend  upon  their  being  able  to  do  it  well,  more 
than  upon  any  other  factor  in  human  life. 

Resources  and  accomplishments 

The  President  of  the  United  States  has  just  called  a  national 
conference  of  the  governors,  members  of  Congress,  and  other  pub- 
lic men  of  all  the  states,  to  meet  in  Washington  in  May  next  to 
initiate  general  measures  for  conserving  the  nation's  resources.  The 
movement  is  none  too  early.  A  rational  people  may  make  much 
of  slender  material  resources.  Doubtless  the  lack  of  territory,  of 
fertility,  of  woods,  and  mines,  and  animal  life,  are  factors  in  the 
intellectual  development,  the  moral  fiber,  the  balance  and  steadiness 
of  a  people.  Very  likely  the  boundless  material  resources  of  the 
United  States  have  contributed  to  our  self-complacency,  to  our  in- 


33 

difference,  to  the  confidence  that  whatever  situation  we  get  into, 
we  will  get  out  of  it  when  we  must.  Of  course,  the  very  richness 
of  the  land,  in  the  hands  of  a  people  who  lack  nothing  in  physical 
strength  and  whose  wits  seldom  go  limping,  has  made  it  quite  pos- 
sible for  the  nation  to  prosper  and  advance  without  exact  indus- 
trial training,  and  even  without  making  the  most  of  everything 
we  have.  Certain  it  is  that  we  have  been  almost  as  prodigal  of 
our  resources  as  of  the  time  and  future  of  our  children.  It  is  a 
strain  upon  the  character  of  a  nation,  as  of  an  individual,  to  have 
a  superabundance  of  the  world's  goods.  We  waste  more  than  would 
sustain  the  same  number  of  people  in  any  other  country  in  the  world. 
It  has  already  impressed  its  influence  upon  the  qualities  of  the  na- 
tion, and  one  of  its  most  decisive  results  appears  in  the  fact  that, 
while  we  are  trying  to  do  more  different  things  without  definite 
aims  in  education  than  other  nations  are  doing,  or  than  our  own 
fathers  did,  we  are  really  doing  much  less  than  other  nations  are 
doing,  or  than  our  fathers  did,  to  make  the  most  of  our  possessions^ 
and  of  ourselves  through  the  training  of  our  children  for  care,  skill, 
and  assiduity  in  the  labor  of  the  hand.  And  it  goes  without  saying 
that,  as  more  and  more  people  live  in  our  territory,  as  the  land 
is  more  and  more  used  and  exhausted,  and  particularly  as  the  more 
general  and  exact  industrial  training  in  other  lands  turns,  as  it  is 
turning,  the  balance  of  trade  against  us,  a  decisive  new  departure 
must  be  taken,  both  in  the  production  and  economic  use  of  ma- 
terials, and  in  the  extent  and  competency  of  our  labor,  if  we  are  not 
to  let  the  steadily  growing  rivalries  in  the  commerce  of  the  world 
force  us  to  a  lower  place  in  the  world  than  the  one  which  rightfully 
belongs  to  us. 

The  United  States  Census  Bureau  has  given  me  a  statement  of 
the  exports  in  domestic  manufactures  from  Germany  and  from 
this  country  in  the  same  years,  beginning  with  1880.  It  is  as 
follows : 

FROM  THE  UNITED  STATES  FROM  GERMANY 

l88o.  .$102  856  000 .   $152  967  000 

1890.  .$151  102  000 $381  6l2  000 

1897. .$277  285  ooo  $569  640  ooo 

1900. .$433  852  ooo  $715  776  ooo 

1906.  .$686  023  ooo $i  079  520  ooo 

The  point  of  these  figures  is  that  the  ratios  of  increase  are  not 
so  very  far  apart,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  Germany  is  an 
old,  densely  populated  country,  whose  economic  conditions  have  not 


34 

much  changed  in  thirty  years,  while  the  United  States  has  marvel- 
ously  expanded  in  all  of  the  factors  of  industrial  productivity,  un- 
less it  be  in  craftsmanship,  in  that  time.  In  other  words,  it  looks 
as  though  the  Germans  had  completely  met  our  natural  advantages 
in  resources,  machinery,  and  markets,  by  multiplying  the  number 
of  their  skilled  workmen,  and  adding  to  the  kinds  of  manufactured 
products  which  find  world  markets.  This  ought  to  be  suggestive 
to  a  people  who  are  quite  conscious  of  their  industrial  and  business 
wits.  It  is  doubtless  true  that  neither  wits,  abundance  of  materials, 
machinery,  waterpower,  coal,  artificial  protection  through  tariffs, 
nor  engineering  schools,  without  a  schooling  and  a  manner  of  life 
which  seeks  to  make  every  individual  man  or  woman  a  producer  of 
something  worth  having,  can  long  save  us  in  competition  with  a 
country  which,  regardless  of  its  philosophy  and  aims,  uses  the  com- 
mon power  to  make  the  most  of  the  labor  of  every  child  of  the 
Empire. 

Shall  we  have  public  trades  schools  ? 

The  American  public  has  really  done  nothing  about  training  the 
children  of  the  wage  earners  in  industrial  vocations.  We  per- 
mitted the  very  name  "  industrial  school "  to  become  used  almost 
exclusively  by  institutions  of  a  penal  or  disciplinary  character.  The 
manual  training  schools  are  not  vocational  schools.  They  relate  to 
general  intelligence  or  culture,  or  else  to  the  highly  technical  or 
semiprofessional  vocations,  for  which  the  children  of  the  masses 
are  not  fitted,  as  a  rule,  by  inheritance,  environment,  or  the  influ- 
ences of  the  home.  A  number  of  very  excellent  trades  schools  have 
been  established  by  benevolent  citizens,  but,  while  some  of  these 
have  been  measurably  successful,  Americans  do  not  take  very  enthu- 
siastically to  institutions  which  in  whole  or  in  part  rest  upon  char- 
ity. The  people  are  too  much  accustomed  to  the  sense  of  pro- 
prietorship in  the  public  school  system  to  become  very  ardent  over 
an  institution  which  is  not  public  enough  to  be  dedicated  to  the 
common  interests  without  conditions  or  reservations.  To  be  ac- 
ceptable to  the  public,  it  must  in  a  sense  belong  to  the  public,  and 
be  managed  by  public  officers  as  a  trust,  for  the  advantage  of  all 
alike. 

Doubtless  the  American  schools  which  come  as  near  as  any  to  the 
trades  schools  of  Europe,  are  those  which  have  been  established  by 
a  few  of  the  great  manufacturing  works  to  train  workmen  for  their 
shops.  No  one  can  justly  criticize  these  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
manufacturing  employers.  It  is  their  own  matter:  they  not  only 


35 

have  the  right,  but  are  to  be  commended  for  doing  it:  people  may 
use  what  they  offer,  or  let  it  alone.  In  the  absence  of  some  general 
system  of  trades  schools  they  are  clearly  warranted  in  doing,  doubt- 
less find  it  necessary  to  do,  what  they  can  to  prepare  boys  for  their 
own  service.  The  movement  only  exemplifies  the  dearth  of  indus- 
trial training  in  the  country,  however,  and  relieves  it  only  at  a  few 
points  and  in  an  altogether  inadequate  measure.  It  is  unacceptable 
to  the  labor  organizations,  because  they  think  that  such  schools  are 
created  and  operated  in  the  particular  interest  of  the  employer,  and 
not  in  the  general  interest  of  the  employee,  and  more  particularly 
because  they  think  such  schools  provide  ways  for  defeating  the  aims 
and  methods  of  organized  labor. 

From  the  viewpoint  of  general  educational  policy,  the  labor  or- 
ganizations have  the  better  of  the  contention.  Such  schools  are 
unquestionably  within  the  rights  of  the  large  employer.  He  can 
not  be  expected  to  organize  and  operate  a  school  upon  a  basis  and 
with  the  ends  of  a  public  school,  or  a  school  in  which  all,  or  all 
of  a  general  class,  have  equal  rights.  Certainly  he  does  not,  and 
quite  as  certainly  the  school  which  he  operates  can  not,  meet  the 
educational  and  industrial,  and  therefore  the  moral  and  material, 
needs  of  the  country  in  any  appreciable  degree.  We  must  find  a 
scheme  which  will  involve  public  proprietorship,  and  be  managed 
in  the  interest  of  all  the  people,  or  at  least  all  who  may  have  com- 
mon interests  in  any  trade,  before  it  will  become  an  effective 
American  institution. 

Can  we  develop  such  a  plan  of  procedure  which  will  meet  with 
the  cooperation  of  employer  and  employee,  of  the  capitalist  and  of 
organized  labor?  It  is  a  vital  question.  I  have  confidence  that  we 
can.  Capital  may  be  expected  to  oppose  in  some  measure  any  ex- 
tension of  the  public  school  system  involving  a  very  substantial  in- 
crease in  cost,  but  capital  can  not  withstand  the  justice  of  the 
demand  that,  if  there  is  any  way  of  doing  it,  the  public  shall  supply 
to  the  children  of  the  wage  earners  something  equivalent  to  the 
literary  and  professional  instruction  provided  for  the  children  of  the 
better-to-do  classes  in  the  high  schools  and  colleges.  Nor  can 
capital  withstand  any  movement  looking  to  the  training  of  work- 
men, to  the  recognition  of  competency  and  industry,  and  to  the 
moral  and  material  advantage  of  American  workmen. 

I  have  no  right  to  speak  for  organized  labor,  but  what  I  have 
known  of  American  workmen  and  what  I  have  recently  read  from 
many  of  their  authorized  leaders,  combine  to  make  me  believe 
that  they  would  not  be  so  fatuous  as  to  deny  the  utmost  of  oppor- 


36 

tunity  to  their  own  children  only  because  there  would  be  more  and 
better  trained  workmen,  if  they  could  have  confidence  that  what 
was  to  be  done  would  be  free  from  selfish  exploitation,  rest  upon  a 
truly  educational  footing,  and  be  guided  by  the  common  advantage 
of  all  of  the  interests  concerned. 

And  since  writing  the  foregoing  I  have  learned  that  the  whole 
subject  is  under  careful  consideration  by  the  authorities  of  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  with  a  manifest  purpose  to  de- 
termine the  attitude  which  the  labor  organizations  ought  to  take 
concerning  it.  The  labor  leaders  often  speak  of  their  apprehension 
about  schools  assuming  to  turn  out  finished  craftsmen  and  thereby 
making  a  "  short  cut  to  workmanship,"  and  place  their  skepticism 
about  industrial  schools  of  all  kinds  upon  that  ground.  There 
ought  to  be  no  apprehension  on  that  account.  There  is  a  universal 
and  imperative  law  which  regulates  the  acquisitions  and  demands 
of  craftsmanship.  The  higher  technical  schools  and  trades  schools 
can  not  expect  to  turn  out  finished  craftsmen  any  more  than  the 
law  schools  and  medical  schools  can  expect  to  train  finished  lawyers 
and  physicians.  But  they  can  train  boys  and  girls  so  that  they 
will  have  the  possibility  of  becoming  finished  craftsmen,  just  as 
the  law  schools  train  young  men  so  that  they  may  become  strong 
lawyers  and  the  medical  schools  train  boys  up  to  the  possibilities 
of  becoming  scientific  and  skillful  physicians  and  surgeons.  And 
it  has  come  to  be  as  apparent  that  craftsmanship  is  dependent  upon 
technical  and  trades  schools  as  that  learned  professions  are  de- 
pendent upon  professional  schools.  And  if  craftsmanship  is 
dependent  upon  such  schools,  then  the  children  of  craftsmen 
are  dependent,  and  all  of  the  higher  interests  of  the  country  are 
dependent  upon  the  schools. 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor,  at  the  recent  meeting  in 
November,  refused  to  commit  itself  to  an  attitude  of  antagonism 
to  technical  and  trades  schools,  and  directed  its  executive  council 
to  examine  "established  and  proposed  industrial  school  systems  so 
that  it  may  be  in  a  position  to  inform  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  what,  in  the  council's  opinion,  would  be  the  wisest  course 
for  organized  labor  to  pursue  in  connection  therewith." 

There  can  in  the  end  be  but  one  outcome,  and  I  have  entire 
confidence  that  the  wisdom  of  the  labor  organizations  will  lead 
them  to  an  attitude  which  is  at  once  sane,  patriotic,  and  promotive 
of  the  best  good  to  the  children  of  the  masses. 

We  have  now  seen  how  very  slight  are  the  relations  of  our 
schools  to  our  industries;  we  have  looked  into  the  relations  which 


37 

other  peoples  have  established  between  their  schools  and  their  indus- 
tries; and  we  are  up  to  the  question  whether  we  shall  train  the 
children  of  our  wage  earning  masses  for  the  crafts  and  other  vo- 
cational employments  and  for  the  household  and  womanly  arts ;  in 
a  word,  whether  we  shall  have  trades  schools,  and  if  so,  upon  what 
sort  of  a  plan. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  moral  argument  for  the  advance  is 
irresistible.  There  can  be  no  room  for  doubt  about  the  moral  obli- 
gation of  the  people  to  do  as  much  for  the  children  who  can  best 
work  with  their  hands,  as  for  those  who  go  to  the  high  schools  and 
engage  in  professional,  commercial,  and  managing  vocations. 

The  higher  institutions  have  nothing  to  fear 

The  experience  of  Germany  shows  that  the  higher  institutions 
would  have  nothing  to  lose,  but  much  to  gain,  from  the  development 
of  vocational  schools.  When  the  Emperor,  notwithstanding  all  that 
had  then  been  done  to  develop  mono-technic  schools,  admonished  his 
people  that  they  were  still  turning  out  too  many  "  intellectuals  " 
and  too  few  "  industrials,"  he  was  aiding  the  universities,  and 
particularly  the  higher  technical  schools,  quite  as  much  as  the  trades 
schools.  It  is  ordinarily  so  in  education.  An  advance  at  any  point 
makes  for  an  advance  at  all  points  where  there  ought  to  be  an 
advance.  Thirty  years  ago  there  were  only  17,500  university  stud- 
ents in  Germany.  Ten  years  ago  the  number  had  increased  to 
30,000,  a  growth  of  less  than  fifty  per  cent  in  twenty  years.  Now 
there  are  45,000,  an  advance  of  more  than  fifty  per  cent  in  ten  years. 
Naturally  the  largest  increase  is  in  the  higher  technical  institutions. 
The  number  of  these  was  4000  in  1891,  13,000  in  1903,  and  20,000 
now.  But  the  higher  literary,  scientific,  and  technological  institu- 
tions, the  institutions  leading  to  professional  and  managing  employ- 
ments, are  all  overcrowded,  though  not  more  so  than  the  professions 
to  which  they  lead.  So,  I  repeat,  we  need  have  no  fear  of  injuring 
the  higher  schools  or  the  higher  institutions  which  train  for  pro- 
fessionalism or  for  idle  culture,  by  training  our  masses  for  indus- 
trialism. 

Have  no  fear  for  the  future  of  the  higher  learning  in  the  United 
States.  Its  only  danger  is  in  the  inadequacy  of  the  elementary  and 
fundamental  training.  Our  people  of  means  and  culture  like  the 
higher  things  of  life  too  well  to  leave  any  room  for  doubt.  The 
university,  the  college,  the  professional  and  technical  school,  are 
as  well  established  in  America  as  the  rock  at  Plymouth.  They  are 
established  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The  advance  of  the  university 
is  quite  as  marked  in  the  newer  parts  of  the  country  as  in  the  older. 
Best  of  all,  an  American  type  of  university  is  coming  out  of  it  all, 


38 

and  happily  it  is  able  to  see  that  the  application  of  scientific  learning 
to  the  vocations  of  living  people  means  more  to  the  world,  and 
does  more  for  itself,  than  the  exclusive  study  of  the  ages  gone, 
for  the  mere  discipline  and  the  culture  there  is  in  it.  And  happily 
too,  this  is  making  for  the  kind  of  elementary  training  that  is  vital 
to  the  progress  of  education  and  the  unfolding  of  a  nation's  life 
in  necessary  equilibrium. 

The  spirit  and  enthusiasm  of  the  American  temperament  are  to 
be  reckoned  with  in  the  training  of  our  youth.  Yes,  in  the  training 
of  our  people  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  There  need  be  no 
fear  of  any  lack  of  generals.  If  we  train  and  guide  the  crowd,  the 
leadership  will  then  take  care  of  itself.  If  we  undertake  to  favor, 
only  or  mainly,  the  materials  of  which  leaders  are  made,  we  are 
likely  to  be  fooled  about  it  —  for  it  is  generally  the  unexpected  that 
happens  in  the  matter  of  leadership;  and  we  then  surely  withhold 
from  the  masses  what  is  their  and  the  country's  due.  All  experi- 
ence shows  that  the  real  captains  in  all  lines  of  human  activity  have 
come  out  of  the  crowd  that  worked  with  their  hands.  The  love  and 
the  capacity  for  drudging  work  are  the  fundamental  basis  of  leader- 
ship in  all  employments,  whether  of  the  head  or  hand,  and  any 
educational  system  which  fails  to  recognize  the  fact,  which  does  not 
honor  the  blouse  shirt  and  the  clean  smut  of  honest  labor,  is  at 
once  misleading  the  innocents  and  moving  directly  towards  the  de- 
feat of  its  own  ends. 

Two  state  movements 

It  would  be  unjust  to  make  no  reference  to  distinct  efforts  in  two 
states  —  Massachusetts  and  Wisconsin  —  to  meet  the  situation.  In 
Massachusetts  a  commission  appointed  by  the  Governor,  pursuant 
to  an  act  of  the  Legislature,  in  1905  studied  the  matter  and  reported 
in  favor  of  the  creation  of  a  permanent  commission  whose  duty 
it  should  be  to  promote  discussion  of  the  matter  and  effect  the 
organization  of  trades  schools  in  the  towns  of  the  state.  Such 
permanent  commission  was  provided  for  and  appointed  in  1906. 
Prof.  Paul  H.  Hanus  of  the  Education  Department  at  Harvard 
University  is  the  president.  The  state  provides  rather  liberal  aid 
for  such  industrial  schools  as  may  be  established  under  the  auspices 
of  the  commission.  The  reports  of  the  two  Massachusetts  com- 
missions are  substantial  contributions  to  the  literature  of  the  subject. 
The  movement  shows  much  careful  thinking  and  some  caution  about 
doing.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  serious  mistake  is  made  in  committing 
the  organization  and  administration  of  industrial  schools  to  a  special 
commission  and  not  to  the  public  school  authorities  of  the  state  and 
the  subdivisions  thereof ;  and  it  seems  to  me  also  that  the  commission 


39 

falls  into  fundamental  error  in  looking  to  the  founding  of  higher 
technical  schools,  teaching  no  one  trade,  to  the  exclusion  of  voca- 
tional trades  schools,  if  it  is  intended  to  meet  the  situation  which 
seems  to  me  most  urgent  and  most  dependent  upon  public  direction 
and  support.  But  that  is  obviously  because  of  the  prevalent  indus- 
trial situation  in  Massachusetts. 

The   Wisconsin   movement  is   evidently  intended  to  deal  more 
exactly  with  the  situation  we  have  been  discussing.    The  last  Legis- 
lature in  Wisconsin  added  nine  sections  to  the  school  law  authoriz- 
ing cities,   or   school   districts   embracing  a  city,  to   establish  and 
maintain  schools  "  for  the  purpose  of  giving  practical  instruction 
in  the  useful  trades  to  persons  having  attained  the  age  of  sixteen 
years,  as  a  part  of  the  public  school  system  of  the  city,"  placing 
such  trades  schools  under  the  supervision  of  the  school  boards,  and 
empowering  the  school  boards  to  provide  buildings  and  equipment, 
and  employ  teachers,  and  "  give  practical  instruction  in  one  or  more 
of  the  common  trades."     Each  trades  school  must  have,  however, 
an  enrollment  of  at  least  thirty  pupils.     An  important,  and  un- 
doubtedly a  salutary  provision  of  the  law,  is  that  the  school  board 
shall  appoint  an  advisory  committee  of  practical  craftsmen  to  co- 
operate in  laying  out  and  carrying  on  the  work  of  the  trades  schools. 
The  scheme  is  to  be  supported  by  levying  a  tax,  not  exceeding 
one  half  of  one  mill,  upon  the  assessed  valuation  of  the  city,  the 
proceeds  of  which  can  not  be  used  for  any  other  purpose.     The 
school  board  is  authorized  to  act  upon  its  own  initiative  unless 
twenty  per  cent  of  the  electors  file  a  protest  against  the  proposi- 
tion after  notice  has  been  given,  in  which  case  the  question  must 
be  submitted  to  an  election  of  all  the  voters,  and  the  majority  must 
rule.     Here,    too,    are    some    details    which    we    would    have   to 
debate,  but  on  the  whole,  the  plan  seems  to  meet  the  situation  very 
well  indeed.    It  is  certainly  filled  with  very  great  possibilities. 

In  each  of  these  states  the  movement  grew  out  of  keen  popular 
interest  in  the  subject.  The  manufacturing  conditions  in  Massa- 
chusetts make  the  training  of  operatives  very  urgent  for  both  the 
people  and  the  industries  of  the  state.  In  the  Wisconsin  cities, 
particularly  in  Milwaukee,  the  teaching  of  particular  trades  has  been 
strongly  urged.  A  "  School  of  Trades  "  was  opened  under  private 
auspices  in  Milwaukee  in  January  1906.  It  seems  to  have  met  a 
manifest  need  very  successfully.  The  feeling  grew  quickly  that  it 
should  be  a  part  of  the  public  school  system  of  the  city,  and  there- 
fore Milwaukee  influences  which  were  interested  in  this  school  pro- 
cured the  enactment  of  the  law.  Since  then  the  "  School  of  Trades  " 
has  become  a  part  of  the  Milwaukee  public  school  system  under  this 


4o 

law.  The  one  half  mill  tax  authorized  by  the  statute  yields  more 
than  $100,000  in  Milwaukee.  I  am  advised  that  as  yet  nothing  more 
has  been  done  in  the  state,  but  that  is  not  significant,  for  the  time 
has  been  short.  It  is  also  said  that  no  schools  have  yet  been  organ- 
ized under  the  Massachusetts  law,  but  that  something  in  this  direc- 
tion is  under  consideration  in  several  cities. 

Such  enactments  in  a  state  extend  discussion  and  give  opportunity 
to  the  thinking  of  the  people.  They  are  incapable  of  harm:  if  not 
desired,  nothing  results :  if  they  will  not  work,  they  are  ignored  or 
modified :  if  they  meet  the  nee'ds  of  the  situation,  they  break  out  the 
roads  of  progress. 

Something:  or  nothing 

If  the  time  has  come  and  the  conditions  are  ripe  for  the  move- 
ment we  have  in  mind,  let  us  try  to  organize  it  upon  a  plan  that 
will  work,  and  in  the  working  will  produce  continually  enlarging 
results  for  all  the  children,  all  the  schools,  all  of  the  industrial,  and 
therefore  all  of  the  moral  and  intellectual,  activities  of  the  country. 
Nothing  can  come  from  a  plan  that  fails  to  reckon  with  all  of  the 
interests  concerned,  that  does  not  call  to  its  support  the  aid  of  both 
employer  and  employee,  or  that  is  incapable  of  results  amply  com- 
mensurate with  the  labor  and  the  cost.  If  we  should  have  to  com- 
promise logic,  efficiency,  coherency,  and  completeness  out  of  it  in 
order  to  avoid  issues,  either  with  capital  or  organized  labor,  let  us 
assume  that  we  are  not  yet  ready,  and,  notwithstanding  the  con- 
tinuing and  increasing  disadvantages,  let  us  wait  until  we  are. 

To  be  successful,  this  movement  must  sustain  organic  relations 
with  the  public  school  system.  It  can  not  succeed  unless  it  is  to 
articulate  with  that  system.  To  articulate  with  it,  it  must  be  under 
the  same  management.  It  must  rest  upon  just  as  substantial  a 
footing  as  the  other  parts  of  that  system.  It  must  appeal  to  the 
civic  pride,  the  pedagogical  sense,  the  practical  experience,  the 
democracy,  and  the  enthusiasms  of  the  country.  Then  it  must  have  a 
share  in  the  passion  of  the  country  for  education,  and  it  must  be  part 
and  parcel  of  the  system  of  common  schools,  which  is  enshrined  in 
the  hearts  and  the  usage,  the  constitutions  and  the  laws,  of  the  land. 
It  can  not  be  shunted  off  to  state  commissions  and  local  boards, 
which  are  out  of  legal  relations,  and  possibly  out  of  sympathetic 
relations,  with  the  established  educational  organization  of  the  people. 
To  be  resultful  it  must  get  from,  and  it  must  give  to,  the  public 
schools.  That,  of  course,  means  that  there  must  be  nothing  about 
the  movement  which  does  not  accord  with  the  fundamental  basis 
of  the  common  schools,  and  it  also  means  that  there  must  be  some 


41 

modifications  in  the  present  plan  of  the  schools  in  order  to  give  it  a 
comfortable  and  useful  place.  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  that  may 
not  be  done  with  quite  as  much  advantage  to  our  common  intel- 
lectual education,  as  to  our  industries. 

To  be  successful,  it  must  not  make  the  mistake  of  ministering 
to  the  highly  technical  and  highly  organized  industries,  carried  on  in 
great  factories,  so  much  as  to  the  mechanical  trades  which  may 
appeal  to  the  independence  and  satisfy  the  ambitions  of  the  in- 
dividual. It  must,  of  course,  do  what  it  may  for  the  employees  of 
the  factories,  but  it  must  know  that  that  will  have  to  be  very  general, 
and  will  have  to  apply  to  general  intelligence  rather  than  technical 
efficiency,  because  the  work  which  has  to  be  done  in  a  factory,  which 
relates  to  a  single  feature  of  a  complicated  process,  will  have  to  be 
learned  in  the  factory  itself.  The  main  point  of  the  proposition 
must  be  the  development  of  workmen  rather  than  of  professionals 
or  managers,  and  the  vital  basis  of  it  must  be  the  inherent  right  of 
every  American  child  to  his  chance  to  make  the  most  of  himself 
in  the  industrial,  as  well  as  the  intellectual,  life  of  the  country. 

Only  harm  and  humiliation  can  come  from  dodging  issues  with 
organized  labor  by  declaring  that  we  do  not  propose  to  teach  any 
trades.  There  is  not  much  else  that  we  are  not  trying  to  do.  I  am 
for  doing  that ;  or  for  making  what  little  we  can  of  our  unsystematic 
system  of  night  schools,  and  not  pretending  that  we  are  doing 
anything  very  important.  The  better  attitude  is  that  our  children 
are  not  learning  trades,  that  it  is  vital  that  they  shall,  that  it  is  their 
right,  that  it  is  necessary  to  the  country,  that  the  schools  must  teach 
them  if  they  are  taught,  that  the  schools  may  now  teach  them  better 
than  the  workmen,  that  the  burden  ought  not  to  be  left  to  the  work- 
men, that  the  schools  can  not  assume  to  train  all  children  to  be 
finished  workmen  any  more  than  they  can  train  all  children  to  be 
finished  physicians  or  engineers,  but  that  the  schools  can  bring  most 
children  up  to  the  plane  of  trained  beginners  in  all  of  the  arts  and 
crafts,  with  entire  confidence  that  in  time  the  greater  part  of  them 
will  be  more  efficient  workmen  and  more  intelligent,  and  therefore 
better,  men  and  women,  and  that  this  will  not  menace,  but  will 
promote  any  legitimate  or  existent  interest  of  organized  labor. 
With  confidence  in  the  intelligence  which  determines  the  ultimate 
attitudes  of  the  labor  organizations,  having  entire  sympathy  with 
their  purposes  if  not  with  all  of  their  acts,  we  may  meet  them  upon 
their  own  grounds  and  develop  the  details  of  a  plan  which  ought  to 
gain  wide,  if  not  universal,  approval,  because  there  is  no  ultimate 
and  logical  reason  for  dissent.  But  that  can  never  come  by  avoid- 
ance, or  through  makeshift  or  compromise. 


42 

Recommendations 

Then   my   suggestions   and   my  tentative   plan   may   perhaps   be 
stated  as  follows: 

1  Insist  upon  more  complete  and  always  up-to-date  vital  statistics. 
Know  of  the  existence  of  every  child,  and  when  he  is  of  school  age 
have  him  accounted  for. 

2  Require  attendance  at  seven  years  of  age,  instead  of  eight,  and 
let  it  continue,  in  elementary  school  or  trades  school,  to  seventeen, 
but  excuse  from  attendance  before  eight,  at  the  parents'  request,  on 
the  ground  of  immaturity,  and  also  excuse  from  attendance  when- 
ever the  work  in  the  elementary  school  and  trades  school  is  com- 
pleted, or  after  fifteen  if  the  child  is  regularly  at  work. 

3  Establish   schools   for   teaching  trade  vocations,  the  work  to 
begin  at  the  end  of  the  elementary  school  course,  and  continue  for 
three  years. 

4  Let  the  trades  schools  be  open  both  in  the  day  time  and  evening. 

5  Establish  continuation  schools,  to  be  open  mainly  in  the  even- 
ings, where  the  work  shall  be  of  a  general  character,  suited  to  the 
needs  of  youth  who  are  employed  through  the   day  and  are  not 
doing  the  work  in  the  trades  schools.     In  other  words,  make  our 
evening  schools  more  general  and  better.    Let  the  work  in  the  con- 
tinuation schools  go  perhaps  half  way  or  more  through  the  high 
school  course,  but  with  less  formalism  about  it. 

6  Shorten  the  time   in   the   elementary  schools   to   seven   years. 
Take  out  what  it  is  not  vital  for  a  child  to  know  in  order  to  learn 
or  to  do  other  things  for  himself.    Assume  that  he  will  learn  and 
do  things  on  his  own  account  if  he  has  the  power.     Strive  to  give 
him  power,  and  expect  that  through  it  he  will  get  knowledge.    Stop 
reasoning  that  mere  information  will  give  him  power.     Stop  the 
dress  parade  and  pretence  about  teaching,  which  consume  time  un- 
necessarily.    Push  the  child  along  and  aim  to  have  him  finish  the 
elementary  school  in  his  fourteenth  year.     When  he  is  fifteen  send 
him  to  the  trades  school  whether  he  has  finished  the  elementary 
school  or  not. 

7  Assume  that  if  the  child  does  not  go  to  the  high  school,  his 
school  work  may  end  with  his  seventeenth,  and  not  in  his  four- 
teenth, year. 

8  Put  into  the  elementary  schools,  from  the  very  beginning,  some 
phase  of  industrial  work.    Up  to  the  last  year  or  two  let  it  be  work 
that  can  be  done  in  the  schoolroom,  at  the  desks,  under  the  ordinary 
teachers,  and  will  occupy  two  or  three  hours  a  week.     This  might 
proceed  from  folding  paper,  molding  sand,  modeling  clay,  outlin- 


43 

ing  with  a  needle,  to  the  simple  knife  work  in  wood,  plain  sewing, 
knitting,  and  the  like.  In  the  last  year  or  two  send  the  classes  to 
central  rooms  specially  prepared,  perhaps  to  the  trades  schools,  for 
more  complex  wood  work,  cooking,  etc.  Always  emphasize  the 
drawing. 

9  As  the  child  comes  to  the  end  of  the  elementary  schools,  expect 
him  to  elect  whether  he  will  go  to  the  high  school,  to  a  trades  school, 
or  to  work. 

10  Wherever  he  goes,  expect  that  the  schools  will  keep  track  of 
him  until  he  is  at  least  seventeen.     If  he  goes  to  the  trades  school, 
expect  him  to  get  into  the  possession  of  the  fundamental  knowledge 
and  something  of  the  skill  of  a  trade  by  his  seventeenth  or  eigh- 
teenth year.     If  he  goes  to  work  in  a  store  or  factory,  expect  him 
to  come  to  the  continuation  school  till  his  seventeenth  year  is  com- 
pleted.   Have  him  and  his  parents  understand  that  he  is  responsible 
to  the  schools  until  he  is  perhaps  eighteen  years  old. 

11  Set  up  trades  schools  in  spacious,  but  not  necessarily  ornate, 
buildings.     Start  the  particular  kind  of  trades  schools  that  the  busi- 
ness of  the  town  and  the  interests  of  the  trades  call  for.     Let  it  be 
understood  that  wherever  there  are  a  sufficient  number  of  children 
to  learn  a  particular  trade,  there  will  be  a  school  to  teach  it  to  them. 
Let  the  trades  school  partake  more  of  the  character  of  the  shop  than 
of  the  school.    Hold  to  books,  somewhat,  particularly  books  which 
the  pupils  will  be  glad  to  read  by  themselves,  carry  mathematics 
a  little  farther,  lay  emphasis  upon  work  with  a  pencil ;  let  the  main 
part  of  the  work  be  with  the  hands ;  and  let  the  atmosphere  of  the 
place  be  free  and  comfortable,  so  that  young  people  will  like  it.    Let 
the  teaching  be  done  by  real  artisans,  who  are  intellectually  balanced 
and  can  teach,  rather  than  by  teachers  who  can  use  tools  only  in- 
differently.   Above  all,  have  teachers  who  are  not  afraid  of  youth, 
and  so  are  not  under  the  necessity  of  brow-beating  and  badgering 
them  a  great  deal,  but  rather  who  command  respect  because  of 
what  they  are,  and  can  lead  the  way  to  the  pleasure  of  really  doing 
things. 

12  Keep  the  trades  schools  open  afternoons  and  evenings.    Have 
their  pupils  attend   from  four  or  five  hours  to  as  many  hours  a 
week  as  the  pupil  can  give.    Let  the  training  be  individual  and  let 
the  progress  of  the  pupil  depend  upon  himself  and  upon  the  time  he 
can  give ;  but  allow  him  to  engage  in  other  work  for  pay  if  he  must. 

13  Modify  the  child  labor  laws  so  they  will  articulate  with  the 
plan,  and  enforce  them.    Require  employers  to  regulate  their  affairs 
so  that  employees  may  attend  continuation  schools  or  a  trades  school 
at  least  four  or  five  hours  per  week. 


44 

14  Let  the  trades  schools  be  supported  by  the  town,  but  give 
them  sufficient  state  aid  to  encourage  their  organization  and  dis- 
pose them  to  conform  to  the  needs  of  the  situation. 

15  Meet  any  demand  on  behalf  of  girls  as  well  as  on  behalf 
of  boys. 

16  Make  it  quite  possible  for  one  in  a  trades  school  to  go  to  a 
manual  training  high  school,  and  vice  versa,  but  be  careful  to  avoid 
the  inference  that  one  is  to  prepare  for  another.    Let  it  be  under- 
stood that  each  stands  upon  its  own   footing  and  leads  to  very 
different  ends. 

Higher  technical  schools 

Cpming  to  a  conclusion,  it  occurs  to  me  that  my  desire  to  empha- 
size the  need  of  mono-technic  or  trades  schools  for  boys  and  girls 
who  are  not  to  work  in  stores,  offices,  or  factories,  but  should  be 
prepared  for  independent  work,  dependent  upon  their  individuality 
and  their  own  hands,  may  have  led  me  to  seem  to  be  indifferent 
to  the  interests  of  the  higher  technical  schools  and  of  the  industries 
which  depend  upon  the  cooperation  of  many  workmen  and  the  use 
of  machinery. 

I  would  not  have  it  so.  Of  course,  much  of  our  industrial  pro- 
ductivity, and  therefore  much  of  our  manhood  and  womanhood, 
is  to  depend  upon  the  conditions  in  the  large  factories ;  or,  in  other 
words,  upon  the  relations  of  the  man  and  the  machine.  The  ten- 
dency of  the  machine  is  to  make  one  man's  labor  as  good  as  another 
man's.  That  tendency  can  be  met  and  overcome  only  through 
education  and  individuality.  And  it  must  be  overcome  or  we  shall 
produce  only  vast  quantities  of  coarse  and  low-priced  goods,  when 
our  commercial  success  depends  upon  our  ability  to  turn  out  fine 
and  high-priced  goods.  We  are  not  meeting  the  tendency  as  we 
ought.  Perhaps  it  is  but  just  to  ourselves  to  say  that  this  is  essen- 
tially the  land  of  invention  and  of  machinery,  and  that  we  have 
more  to  do  to  keep  the  operative  ahead  of  the  machine,  than  other 
countries  have.  Then  we  must  do  more.  Beautiful  china  and  fine 
fabrics  are  dependent  upon  it,  and  we  are  not  abreast  of  Britain, 
or  France,  or  Germany,  or  even  of  China  or  Japan,  in  fine  pottery 
or  fine  weaving.  And  there  is  more  than  the  fineness  and  the  quality 
of  products  at  stake :  the  fineness,  and  the  character,  and  the  happi- 
ness, of  men  and  women  are  at  stake.  It  all  depends,  in  the  last 
analysis,  upon  the  general  education  and  the  special  training  of 
operators  and  operatives  alike.  And  that  must  be  done  in  the  ele- 
mentary and  secondary  schools,  in  special  technical  schools,  and  in 
the  factories  themselves.  It  can  not  come  through  royal  decree. 
It  must  come  through  the  favor  and  the  pressure  of  the  gradually 


45 

unfolding  public  opinion  of  the  country.  But  it  can  never  come  if 
we  persist  in  the  hallucination  that  we  are  possessed  of  the  world's 
knowledge  and  proficiency  already.  Instead  of  being  indifferent  to 
the  manual  training  schools  or  the  high-grade  pluri-technic  schools, 
I  think  they  are  our  main  instrumentalities  for  making  us  aware  of 
our  industrial  deficiencies,  and  for  pointing  our  industrial  masses 
to  the  marvelous  value  of  art  sense,  of  the  natural  sciences,  of 
economics,  of  manual  skill,  of  ambition  and  assiduity,  of  intellectual 
progress,  and  of  character,  in  workmanship  and  in  life. 

But  all  said  and  done,  the  higher  technical  school  is  already  upon 
its  feet  at  the  points  where  most  needed.  The  necessities  of  capital 
promote  it  and  the  favor  of  fashion  is  lavished  upon  it.  And  the 
need  of  the  trades  school,  or  the  appreciation  of  the  basis  upon 
which  it  can  thrive,  or  the  obligations  of  the  common  life  to  it,  are 
as  yet  nowhere  accepted  in  America;  and  therefore  it  claims  the 
most  emphasis. 

Agricultural  education 

There  is  no  less  need  of  the  applications  of  general  knowledge 
and  special  skill  to  the  agricultural  than  to  the  mechanical  indus- 
tries. But  agricultural  training  rests  upon  a  wholly  different  footing 
and  must  be  promoted  by  wholly  different  methods  from  those 
which  must  be  used  to  extend  and  uplift  industrial  craftsmanship. 
At  an  early  day  I  hope  to  discuss  the  basis  and  the  methods  of  a 
definite  training  in  the  proficiency  which  will  enable  people  who  live 
on  the  farms  to  get  the  most  for  rational  life  out  of  their  lands. 
It  is  spoken  of  now  only  to  show  that  it  is  not  forgotten. 

Conclusion 

We  have  exploited  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  democracy 
in  our  politics  and  in  our  religion  much  more  completely  and  satis- 
factorily than  in  our  education  or  in  our  industries.  The  application 
of  those  principles  to  our  training  and  our  work  of  hand  is  now  to  be 
pressed  to  conclusions. 

It  is  a  matter  of  great  moment  to  the  country  and  to  what  the 
country  stands  for  in  the  world;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  preeminent 
concern  to  the  State  which  has  the  largest  population  and  is  first  in 
finance  and  in  publication,  as  well  as  first  in  the  commercial  and 
manufacturing  activities  of  the  Union. 

The  people  of  the  State  have  the  power  in  their  hands.  They  have 
millions  of  boys  and  girls  to  raise  aright.  Nothing  is  clearer  than 
that  results  turn  upon  the  training.  They  have  business  to  promote. 
The  outcome  is  determined  by  the  course  that  is  taken.  Our 
children  and  our  work  are  interdependent.  One  interest  must  help 


46 

the  other  if  we  would  grow  in  the  elements  which  make  a  com- 
monwealth great.  It  is  becoming  more  and  more  obvious  every 
day  that,  whether  we  would  wish  it  so  or  not,  a  steadily  increasing 
weight  of  responsibility  must  rest  upon  the  schools. 

The  usefulness  of  our  society  to  the  individual  depends  upon  the 
character  and  the  efficiency  of  the  units  who  comprise  the  mass. 

The  worth  of  the  individual  to  the  state,  on  the  other  hand,  de- 
pends upon  the  common  acceptance  of  the  principles  of  the  Golden 
Rule,  as  well  as  upon  the  ambitions  which  are  inspired  by  the  com- 
mon thinking  and  the  prevalent  anxiety  and  aptitude  of  the  people 
for  work. 

Whether  the  work  be  intellectual  or  manual  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  right  of  the  toiler  to  respect  and  regard. 

Individual  success  and  the  growing  strength  of  a  people  must 
come,  if  it  comes  at  all,  through  steady  application  by  growing 
numbers,  through  increasing  competency,  through  sound  living,  and 
through  the  slow  accretions  of  goods  and  of  esteem. 

It  would  be  an  appalling  and  pathetic  mistake  for  a  people  to 
think  that  subtlety  and  greed  can  become  the  basis  of  either  per- 
sonal or  national  prosperity. 

If  it  seems  an  unnecessary  and  rather  repellant  preachment  to 
reiterate  these  truisms  here,  let  me  remind  you  that  immoral  ex- 
ploitation, the  illegitimate  use  of  the  common  power,  and  the  ab- 
normal fortunes  which  have  resulted  from  overreaching,  which  has 
found  its  opportunity  in  the  lack  of  legal  restraint  and  the  abund- 
ance of  abnormal  conditions,  have  raised  serious  doubts  in  the 
minds  of  multitudes  as  to  whether  they  are  truisms  or  not. 

Economic  conditions  have  forced  combinations.  The  disappear- 
ance of  individual  responsibility  in  the  corporation  and  the  labor 
union,  has  wrought  havoc  with  old-fashioned  thinking  and  with 
moral  fiber. 

The  time  must  soon  come  when  the  man  in  the  corporation  shall 
be  stopped  from  using  the  common  power  of  the  people  to  oppress 
rather  than  to  aid  the  people,  and  when  the  man  in  the  union  shall 
be  stopped  from  using  the  organized  strength  of  his  fellows  to  do 
the  least  he  can  for  his  wage,  and  from  debasing  himself  through 
subtle  antagonism  to  the  people  for  whom  he  works,  or  a  heavy 
shadow  will  rest  upon  the  pathway  of  the  Republic. 

It  is  to  be  accomplished  by  the  logical  evolution  and  application 
of  law,  and  by  a  system  of  education  which  offers  equivalent  op- 
portunities to  all  people  and  to  all  industries. 

It  is  to  come  through  the  stern  refusal  of  special  privilege  and 
the  ready  recognition  of  the  right  of  special  profits  for  special 


47 

assiduity,  special  thrift,  special  skill,  special  ingenuity,  or  special 
risks,  on  equal  terms  to  all. 

It  will  come  through  the  ample  protection  and  encouragement 
of  the  corporation  or  labor  union  in  all  legitimate  operations,  and 
in  the  complete  rejection  of  all  propositions  which  impinge  upon  the 
fundamental  rights  of  men  or  are  prejudicial  to  the  interests  which 
are  common  to  us  all. 

The  corporations  are  being  taught  rather  strenuous  lessons  just 
now.  There  is  some  danger  that  the  new  found  fact  that  the  process 
is  good  politics  may  carry  it  too  far.  The  officer  who  misbehaves 
deserves  the  punishment  more  than  the  corporation. 

The  man  in  the  union,  and  all  the  rest  of  us,  both  in  this  gen- 
eration and  the  next,  must  be  aided  more  completely  by  the  schools, 
and  to  do  that  some  radical  changes  in  the  basis,  the  thought,  and 
the  plan  of  the  schools  seems  imperative. 

The  child  must  have  his  chance, —  an  equal,  open,  hopeful,  chance. 
But  he  must  not  be  misled.  His  chance  is  in  work.  It  is  in  his  be- 
coming accustomed  to  discipline,  to  direction,  to  industry,  and  to 
persistence,  before  he  is  sixteen  years  of  age. 

The  chance  is  lessening  rather  than  enlarging  through  too  much 
sentimentality  in  the  schools.  I  do  not  think  our  young  people  are 
more  immoral, — I  think  they  are  more  moral,  than  the  young  people 
of  the  last  generation,  or  the  one  before  that,  were,  but  I  think  they 
are  distinctly  more  irresponsible,  falsely  polite  on  occasions,  and  dis- 
tinctly impolite  and  often  impertinent  the  rest  of  the  time,  than  their 
predecessors  were ;  that  they  have  more  information  and  less  power ; 
and  that  it  is  due  to  the  weakening  control  of  the  home,  and  to 
pedagogical  philosophies  which  are  either  fallacious  or  are  unwisely 
applied,  as  well  as  to  work  which  is  undesirable  or  too  much  at- 
tenuated, in  the  schools.  Let  us  resume  some  old-fashioned  notions 
about  work,  about  the  child  as  well  as  the  teacher  doing  his  part  of 
the  work,  and  about  the  direction  and  the  control  of  children. 

Even  though  we  regret  the  fact,  I  am  confident  that  the  chance 
of  the  American  child  depends  upon  the  school  supplying  oppor- 
tunities for  his  physical,  as  well  as  his  intellectual,  faculties,  which 
were  formerly  supplied  outside  of  the  schools.  He  must  have  a 
wider  range  of  things  to  do,  he  must  be  allowed  to  choose  when 
he  can;  and  he  must  then  be  required  to  do  what  he  undertakes. 

His  training  must  be  more  exact  and  definite.  He  must  be 
trained  in  a  vocation  and  taught  that  he  must  uplift  his  craft  and 
help  his  craftsmen,  while  he  allows  no  one  less  worthy  than  himself 
to  rob  him  of  the  benefits  of  his  individual  skill,  or  of  his  funda- 
mental right  to  use  it  in  the  way  which  will  bring  him  the  most 


48 

advantage.  He  must  be  distinctly  told  that  he  can  not  have  the 
profit  which  belongs  to  other  men  through  their  knowledge,  skill, 
and  thrift;  that  shiftlessness  can  bear  none  but  bitter  fruit;  and  that 
there  is  no  probable  chance  and  nothing  in  the  thought  of  his 
country  which  will  make  it  otherwise. 

Our  schools  can  not  long  continue  to  give  an  advantage  to  a 
minority,  nor  to  give  more  aid  to  the  intellectual  than  the  industrial 
interests  in  our  life. 

The  schools  will  have  to  keep  the  teaching  even  with  the  child's 
age;  will  have  to  adapt  the  teacher  to  the  sex,  circumstances,  and 
purposes  of  the  child;  will  have  to  meet  the  demands  of  every 
kind  and  grade  of  industry;  and  will  have  to  continue  their  over- 
sight and  aid  until  habits  are  somewhat  established,  and  the  ability 
to  perform  a  definite  work  is  reasonably  assured. 

If,  coincident  with  all  this,  capital  is  encouraged  to  venture  and 
provide  work  for  loyal  and  capable  workers;  if  the  dividends  be 
but  a  just  return  for  the  investment  and  the  risk,  and  the  wage  be 
gauged  by  the  character  of  the  service,  and  the  skill  and  reliability 
of  the  worker;  if  employers  will  concern  themselves  about  the 
safety,  comforts,  and  general  welfare  of  employees,  and  if  em- 
ployees will  appreciate  the  risks  and  responsibilities  of  management, 
and  study  the  interests  of  employers ;  if  the  work  of  the  day  is  kept 
within  reasonable  hours  or  specially  compensated;  if  there  are 
public  facilities  for  self-improvement  when  the  work  of  the  day  is 
over ;  if  there  is  combined  effort  to  make  the  homes  as  good  as  may 
be;  if  children  are  not  allowed  to  work  when  they  should  be  in 
school;  if  women  are  not  permitted  to  labor  when  and  where  they 
should  not;  and  if  men  who  can  work  are  made  to  work  or  allowed 
to  want;  if  amusements  can  be  made  decent,  healthful,  and  at 
moderate  cost;  if  drink  can  be  held  in  check,  and  politics  be  told  to 
go  hence;  then  wealth,  and  health,  and  happiness  will  abound  in 
the  land. 

Let  us  bring  about  as  much  of  it  as  we  can  for  our  State.  To 
that  end  let  us  not  be  afraid  of  new  .plans.  Let  us  not  think  that 
the  trend  of  events  ought  not  to  be.  Even  though  we  depart  from 
the  thought  and  the  practice  of  the  past,  let  us  work  out  the  founda- 
tion principles  of  our  democracy  in  our  education,  and  let  us  make 
our  knowledge  and  our  training  potent  in  our  industries.  And  let 
us  make  our  industries  contribute  not  only  to  our  wealth  and  to  our 
strength  but  to  our  manhood  as  well.  Then  we  shall  assure  the  free 
American  chance  to  every  one,  and  we  shall  give  a  new  interpreta- 
tion and  a  new  power  to  the  essential  factors  of  our  common  life. 


OF  THE  * 

UNIVERSITY  1 


^ 


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